Across the Years
by MistyC
Summary: Aragorn meets a distant relative from the far future who needs his help. Now Complete. 3rd place 2007 MPA award in the Elseworlds category.
1. Unexpected Meetings

  
Betas: Aranel, Rhonda and Eleniel. Thanks guys.  
I've had a number of betas for this story, as each person has had schedule conflicts that occasionally prevent them from being able to beta a specific chapter. So I would also like to thank Vi and Shell for their contributions as well. 

Special thanks to my cousin Angie, who, although not being a major LOTR fan, has been reading my stories, asking questions, and making suggestions to help improve the story and build Lauren's background. For the medical aspects of the story, I relied on Shell to answer my many questions and tell me if I got anything wrong. Those sections would not be nearly so accurate without her help.

Disclaimers: I don't own Aragorn, Arwen, Elrond, the twins, etc., Middle-earth, or any concepts associated with Lord of the Rings. They all belong to Tolkien. The concept of the story and my original character(s) are all that belong to me.

Author's Notes: First off, I would like to reassure all readers that this story is complete. I wrote it about a year ago, and it's quite a bit longer than anything else I've written. I plan to post a chapter a week, depending on my schedule. I am still editing some of the later chapters, so I won't guarantee the chapter a week schedule, but you don't have to worry that the story will be left unfinished. The original version of this story had many song lyrics scattered throughout. Due to copyright concerns, the lyrics have all been removed. Since many of the songs were important to the story, however, I have in many cases paraphrased the song and simply listed the title and artist in parentheses. If you know the song or would like to look the lyrics up yourself, you will see why I used particular songs in certain places.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter One - Unexpected meetings

King Elessar crawled into bed with a sigh of relief. It had been a long day, and he had had a difficult time convincing Eldarion that it was time to go to sleep. As he sank gratefully into the softness of the mattress, he felt Arwen's arm come to rest across his chest as she snuggled close to his side.

"Is he asleep?" she asked softly.

"Yes, finally," Aragorn said. "I think he gets his stubbornness from your side of the family. I would swear I have seen that same expression on Elladan and Elrohir's faces."

Arwen lightly slapped his chest. "No, I am sure it comes directly from you. I have never met a being as stubborn as you."

Aragorn gave her a slightly wounded look. "Not even Gimli?"

"Not even **he** is as stubborn as you," Arwen said firmly. She placed a finger over his lips to halt any further discussion. "And now it is time for sleep." She leaned over and gently kissed him. "Goodnight, my love."

"Goodnight," Aragorn responded, pulling Arwen close and letting his eyes drift closed. Within moments, he was sound asleep.

Aragorn spent a restless night wandering from one dream to the next, never settling down in one place for long. It was as if his mind searched for something he was unaware of. At some point late into the night, Aragorn found himself in an unfamiliar place and looked around in confusion. Where was he? He appeared to be standing on a beach, with white sand stretching off into the distance and the ocean reaching to the horizon, the waters at least five different shades of blue. The sun shone down on him from a cloudless blue sky. At the horizon, the blue of the water blended into the blue of the sky. Beyond the stretch of sand stood a wooded area populated with trees and plants that Aragorn had never seen before. The trunks of these trees stretched high into the sky before branching off into spreading leaves and bearing strange brown spherical objects. Though he did not recognize where he was, Aragorn relaxed. He could not be worried in such a perfect place. This must be another dream, for surely he had not been kidnapped and left in paradise. All he needed now for this to be a perfect dream was for Arwen to appear.

"Excuse me, you're standing in my sun."

The feminine voice behind him caused Aragorn to turn quickly around. However, it was not Arwen that he saw. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he took in the sight before him. A woman was reclining on a chair wearing nothing but two small strips of cloth. Aragorn quickly turned away again, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"I beg your pardon, miss."

He heard the sounds of her shifting position behind him. "Fine, you have it, but you're still standing in my sun. Are you planning to move, or should I?"

Aragorn shook his head in confusion as he moved several feet to the side. This was turning out to be a very odd dream. He decided that he would not tell Arwen about this. If she found out that he was dreaming of a very scantily clad woman, she would not be happy.

"Thank you," the woman said. "But if you're going to stay here, do you think you could turn around? I feel kind of strange talking to your back."

Aragorn frowned. "Would you like to put some clothes on first?"

She laughed lightly. "A bikini is perfectly acceptable attire for the beach. Why would I want to put on any more clothing?"

"A bikini?" Aragorn asked in confusion. "Your …attire has a name?" He could have sworn that she was wearing nothing more than her undergarments. To hear that she did not wish to put on more clothes before a stranger saw her again confused him to no end.

"Of course it does. Just like a shirt or a coat has a name. Where are you from that you've never seen a bikini?" She gave an exasperated sigh. "I can't carry on a conversation with your back. If the bikini bothers you, I can cover it up." He heard more movement behind him, and then she spoke up again. "You can turn around now."

When Aragorn turned back around, he saw that she had pulled on a short sleeved shirt that hung to about mid-thigh. She stood before him and held out her arms to show off her new clothing.

"Is that better?" she asked.

Aragorn looked at the expanse of bare leg that she was showing. "Barely."

She shook her head and sighed. "It's a tropical beach in the summer. I'm not putting on any more clothes. If anything, you might want to take some off. A leather overcoat is a little warm for the beach, isn't it?"

Aragorn wasn't paying much attention to her words, as he was rather pre-occupied trying to figure out what the dark object covering her eyes was.

She stopped speaking as he stared at her, and a puzzled expression crossed her face. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"Yes," Aragorn said. "What is that covering your eyes?"

"My sunglasses?" she asked in confusion. "They protect my eyes from the glare of the sun. You've never seen sunglasses before? Where in the world are you from?"

"Minas Tirith," Aragorn answered.

She cocked her head to the side. "Never heard of it."

"It is in Gondor," Aragorn continued.

Shaking her head in the negative, she said, "Sorry."

Aragorn felt almost insulted. "It is one of the largest kingdoms on Arda."

She frowned. "And here I thought I had such a good grasp on geography. I'm sorry. I've never heard of any of them."

Now it was Aragorn's turn to frown. "How is it possible that you have not heard of the name of the world in which you live?"

Her lips quirked slightly. "Most people I know call our world Earth. Is Arda the word for Earth in another language?"

Aragorn paused. "Yes, it is. But you do not call it Middle-earth?"

"No, why would I call it that?" She took a step back and slowly looked him up and down, assessing what she was seeing. "Worn leather coat that looks hand stitched, clothes of a style I've never seen, and I don't think they're made of a synthetic material, with leather vambraces on the arms." She spoke softly to herself as she catalogued her observations. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head as she caught sight of Anduril hanging at his side. "Oh, wow," her voice was soft, reverential. "You're actually carrying a sword. A beautiful one from what I can see." She raised her eyes to meet Aragorn's for the first time.

He stared into her eyes, stunned. Those eyes were extremely familiar to him. Aragorn found himself staring into Arwen's grey eyes. He barely heard her next words as she continued speaking.

"When you take into account your clothing, that gorgeous sword, your very unusual accent and the fact that you've never seen a bikini or sunglasses, the question becomes not where are you from, but when?"

Aragorn barely noticed when she stopped speaking. It was not until he saw the slight annoyance in her eyes that he realized she was waiting for a response from him. It took him a moment to catch up to the conversation, as all he could seem to think was that he had seen that same look numerous times in the eyes of Lord Elrond and both of the twins. When his mind finally caught up with her question, his forehead creased in confusion. "I live in the beginning of the fourth age of Middle-earth. What age do you inhabit?"

"I live in the year 2005 A.D. Somehow, though, I don't think our calendars are all that compatible. But I think it's safe to say that we come from very different times and very different worlds."

She turned around and sat back down on her chair, laughing softly and shaking her head.

"Is there something amusing in this?" Aragorn asked.

"Actually, yes, there is. I always knew I was a little different, and this just proves it. I'm dreaming of the most beautiful beach I've ever seen, and instead of dreaming up a blond-haired blue-eyed beach bum or lifeguard to rub sunscreen on my back, I dream up a medieval knight or something."

Aragorn raised an eyebrow. "Your dream? I thought this was my dream. A rather odd one, but I do distinctly remember going to bed and waking up here."

"Well, I was here for a few hours before you popped in, so I'm pretty sure this is my dream." She paused briefly. "Are you trying to tell me you're a real person and not just some gorgeous ancient warrior I dreamed up?"

Aragorn flushed slightly at the gorgeous comment, but answered her anyway. "I am a real person. I have a life of my own, a wife and a son. I fell asleep and found myself here."

"A wife and son, huh?" she muttered under her breath. "Figures. Even in my dreams, all the good ones are taken." She looked back at Aragorn as he slowly sank down to sit on the sand in front of her. "Do you make a habit of invading the dreams of others?" she asked. "Because I have to say that this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me. I don't generally know I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming, and I've never met anyone else in my dreams who was also dreaming." She didn't pause long enough for Aragorn to respond before continuing. "Unless this is the afterlife. Maybe I died after all. This certainly looks like paradise. But you know, I was kind of expecting heaven to be a little more crowded." She looked steadily into Aragorn's eyes as she went on. "Unless this is some sort of way station and you're here to escort me to heaven. Is that it? Are you some kind of angel, or a heavenly messenger? Are you the angel Michael? I think he had a sword."

He stared at her in confusion for a moment, not knowing where she would have come up with an idea like that. "No," he said slowly. "I am no messenger of the Valar, and I truly hope this is not any form of afterlife. I am not dead, but merely asleep."

She gazed at him with a serious look on her face. "If as many centuries or millennia separate our times as I think, then yes, you would have to be dead. As far as I know, people don't generally live that long."

Nodding, he said, "Yes, in your time, I would surely be dead, but it has not yet happened in my time. I do not understand how, but we must be talking to each other across the many years that lie between us."

"So somehow our unconscious minds connected in this dream world?" she asked in surprise. "That's more than a little weird. I assume this has never happened to you, either?"

Aragorn shook his head in the negative. "No, however, I as some of my kin before me, have the gift of foresight. I have never reached into anyone's dreams before, but it may be possible. Do you share such a gift?"

"Foresight? Like psychic abilities?" She shook her head. "No, I don't have any paranormal abilities, and to be truthful, I didn't believe they were really real. I've always thought psychics and fortune-tellers were frauds. It's like astrology and horoscopes. All the predictions are so general that anyone could read anything into it that they wanted. 'You will meet a tall dark-haired stranger', and such." She stopped and looked at Aragorn with her lips quirked into a wry grin. "Though that prediction would seem to be dead on, wouldn't it?"

He merely smiled at her observation. As she talked, he took the time to study her, looking for clues to confirm the idea in his mind. She had dark curly hair that was cut short, shorter than his own, not quite to her shoulders. Her skin was fair, but it was her eyes that he found himself drawn to time and again. There was a spark of mischief that he had seen often in the eyes of the twins, a light that always shown in Arwen's eyes, and he even thought he could see a hint of Eldarion's stubbornness in those familiar grey eyes. When she had pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, he had seen her ears, and there was no trace of the elven points, but he would not have expected there to be after so many generations. But her coloring was that of his family line, the royalty of Númenor and of the line of Elrond and Elros. He interrupted her, not having been paying attention to her words. "You have such unusual eyes. Does the color run in your family?"

She stopped short and stared as she tried to figure out where the non sequitur had come from. She finally answered him. "Yes, they do. The color skips generations, but shows up every once in a while among my father's family. I think my great-grandfather had them. And when they show up, they are always accompanied by dark hair. Why?"

"What do you know about your ancestors?" Aragorn questioned her.

"Not much," she said. "I couldn't tell you anything about my family beyond a handful of generations, though I know some of our family came from England and some from France, although that was several generations back. Where is this line of questioning coming from?" Her eyes widened at the look Aragorn gave her and she studied him for a moment, taking in his dark hair and grey eyes. They were a match to her own and she realized what he was thinking. "You think we're related somehow. That you may be one of my ancestors."

Aragorn nodded. "In your eyes, I see my family. And it would explain somewhat how I found myself in your dreams. We have a blood connection."

She thought about it for a moment. "I suppose it's possible. I certainly can't disprove it." She looked more closely at him and now that she thought about it, she could almost see a similarity between some of his features and her father's. "So, am I supposed to call you Grandpa now? You may be my great, great, great, however many greats grandfather, but I think I'd feel rather strange calling you that."

"As I would feel odd having you call me that. You may call me Aragorn."

Her eyes widened as she realized that in all of this, they had never introduced themselves. "OK Aragorn. My name is Lauren Ellis. You can call me Lauren."

Aragorn noticed that Ellis was similar to Elessar, but knew he had no way of knowing if the one had come from the other. "It is very nice to meet you, Lauren."

A silence fell between them as they tried to think of something else to say. Aragorn asked a question that he had meant to ask earlier. "Why did you think this was the afterlife? Why would you think you were dead?"

She took in a quick breath and abruptly looked away from Aragorn. By the time she looked back at him, Aragorn had a bad feeling about what she would say.

"Well," she began slowly. "I had an accident, I think."

"An accident?" Aragorn asked her when it looked like she was not going to elaborate.

"It's the middle of winter where I'm from," she began slowly. "It had snowed early in the day but melted quickly. The roads were fine, or so I thought. I guess there was enough water left to freeze when the temperature dropped after the sun went down. I was driving home after meeting a friend for dinner. There must have been a patch of black ice or something. It all happened so quickly, but the last thing I remember was losing control of the car and going over an embankment. I saw the trees rushing at me, then woke up here."

For a split second, Aragorn found himself caught up in her memories. He was trapped, restrained in some sort of metal and glass box and they were flying toward a stand of trees at an unimaginable speed. As quickly as it started, it stopped, and they were back on the beach.

Aragorn stared at Lauren in dismay. He did not understand all that he had seen and heard, but he did not know how anyone could have survived the collision that had surely occurred.

Lauren shook her head abruptly and ran a trembling hand through her hair. "I'm sorry about that. I've really been avoiding thinking about it. I don't know how you saw that with me, but then, I don't know how any of this is possible at all. But one thing I know is that the accident was a bad one. I was going sixty miles an hour when I went off the road. Few people simply walk away from accidents like that. When you add in the fact that I'm here and not waking up in the real world, the signs don't point to anything good."

Aragorn wanted to say something comforting, but he didn't know what to say. Before he could think of anything, a strange feeling came over him. As he looked down, he saw his body fading away into nothing. He looked back up at Lauren in concern.

She shook her head in response to the question in his eyes. "You said you found yourself here when you fell asleep. You're probably just waking up. Don't worry about it. I have the feeling you don't belong here anyway. Enjoy your life, Aragorn. You never know when it will all come to an end." Her eyes held onto his, and he saw a glimpse of the depth of pain and sorrow hidden there before she and her surroundings faded from his awareness.

Once the beach had faded completely, he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly. He opened his eyes to see Arwen staring at him in concern. "What is wrong?" he asked groggily.

"It is morning, and I could not wake you," Arwen said. "Are you ill?"

Aragorn sat up and shook his head to erase the last remnants of sleep. "No, I am well. I was dreaming, but it felt so real. I think I met our distant granddaughter, and she seems to be in trouble."

Arwen gazed at her husband. "Tell me of this dream. Maybe we can determine what it means."

And so he did.


	2. Getting Comfortable

A/N: Disclaimers in first chapter. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. One of the songs used in this chapter is 'Live Like You Were Dying' and it is performed by Tim McGraw. I don't have any rights to the song.

Chapter Two - Getting Comfortable

Aragorn approached the end of his day with a strange mix of anticipation and trepidation. His discussion with Arwen had not led to any firm conclusions, they did not know if his experiences had been real or merely a dream. However, even with no proof, Aragorn was convinced that he had been conversing with his distant granddaughter. Though he had only briefly met her, he had come to care about what happened to her; she was his kin, distant though the relation was. He had to admit that he was afraid of going to sleep and not dreaming of her again. If this had been their only contact, he would never know whether she had lived, or died from the injuries she must surely have sustained. He did not like that thought.

He quickly got ready for bed and let Arwen take care of Eldarion. Arwen was back before he was able to fall asleep. He shifted to look at Arwen as she joined him in bed.

"Are you still awake, then?" Arwen asked, snuggling close to his side.

"I am having difficulty falling asleep," Aragorn admitted.

"I could always make one of Ada's teas," Arwen said with a laugh.

"No, I thank you for your kind offer, but I believe I will decline," Aragorn said with a mock frown on his face. Lord Elrond had frequently used medicinal teas to put him to sleep whenever he was injured, but he had never liked the teas, and would always avoid them if given a choice.

Arwen placed her hand gently on his cheek. "Close your eyes, Aragorn. If you wish to sleep, you must first relax, clear your mind of all your thoughts and concerns."

Aragorn followed her advice and soon found himself drifting between the waking world and sleep. He let go and relaxed completely, falling swiftly to sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back on the beach. A smile crossed his face as he turned to look for Lauren; a smile that faded as he found the beach deserted. Where was she? A momentary panic struck him at the thought that she had died and left this dream world. Just then, he heard a sound and looked out over the water. There was a floating raft that had not been there the time before. The raft was some distance out and a strange sound was drifting across the water from it. Despite the odd sound, the raft also appeared empty. After a moment of watching, he saw an arm break the surface of the water and come to rest on the raft. The arm was quickly followed by another, and Aragorn gave a sigh of relief as Lauren pulled herself easily out of the water and onto the raft.

"Lauren!" He called her name to get her attention.

She turned around to look in his direction and waved to acknowledge him. Aragorn watched as she dove cleanly into the water and swam toward him with strong, sure strokes. When she reached the shallows, she stood up and walked through the waves to stand in front of him. Pushing her wet hair back out of her face, she smiled at him.

"You came back. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"I was concerned about you," Aragorn said. He was trying intently to keep his gaze focused on her face and not drift to the vast amounts of skin that her clothing showed.

"That's really sweet," she said with a soft smile. Lauren noticed that he was avoiding looking at her and laughed softly. She walked over to her chair and picked up a towel, quickly dried herself off, and pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. "Does this suit your sense of modesty enough? Because it's really too warm for anything else."

"That will be fine," Aragorn said. "I could not help noticing that you are a very strong swimmer."

"I should be," she remarked. "I spent most of my childhood in very warm climates. During the summer, I spent as much time as possible in the water, either at the beach or a swimming pool. My mom once told me I was part fish. You know, from that day on, I haven't been able to eat seafood of any kind." She laughed lightly, chuckling at herself.

Aragorn looked back toward the raft. "Where did the raft come from? And I believe you were wearing different clothes when first we met."

"Yes, I am. Pretty observant for a guy who blushes every time he looks at me." Aragorn gave her a mock glare, but she was totally unaffected by it, and simply grinned, tilting her head to the side as she studied him. "I'm sorry for laughing about this, but you have to know that your reaction is a bit of a novelty for me. Most guys I know upon seeing a woman in a swimsuit would react quite a bit differently, or wouldn't react at all. Though honestly, I think I would find that non-reaction a bit disappointing. But moving on to your question, the raft and new clothes are all my doing."

"How is that your doing?" Aragorn asked, ignoring her earlier comments and accepting the change in subject.

"Well, after you left, I started getting a little bored. I mean even paradise gets boring if you don't have someone to share it with. So, I started thinking that I really would like a radio to listen to. Even if I don't have someone to interact with, I could at least listen to music, and it wouldn't seem so lonely. As soon as I thought that, a radio appeared. So it appears that I can affect my surroundings and control what I experience. Pretty cool, huh?" Lauren waved her arm toward the raft to emphasize her point.

Aragorn shook his head, not understanding some of her phrasing. "Cool?"

"It means a good thing. When I say something is pretty cool, it means that I like it." A casual shrug followed her explanation.

"Oh," Aragorn said, his brow furrowed in confusion. He failed to see how the word cool related to the idea of liking something.

"You'll have to forgive me," Lauren said. "Our culture uses a lot of slang words, words that are understood within the culture, but may be incomprehensible to others. If I use a phrase that you don't understand, just ask."

"Very well," Aragorn said nodding his head once. He was beginning to think their cultures differed in more ways than he could have imagined. Remembering an earlier question he had, he decided to ask. "So, what is a radio?"

She grinned. Looking over to a shaded area, she waved a hand dramatically and a table with two wicker chairs appeared. Lauren looked back at the raft, and the sound that had been in the background suddenly stopped, only to start again as an object appeared on the table. "Would you care to come see for yourself?" she asked him, walking over to stand next to the table.

Aragorn stared at the object in horror. It was emitting sounds like he had never before heard. It sounded like an army of orcs was approaching, bellowing and stomping and trying to make the worst noise they could. He put his hands over his ears and gave her a pained look. "What is that horrible noise?"

"Hey!" she exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. "There's no need to be insulting. That's music, or more specifically, a band called Guns & Roses. They were popular about 10 to 15 years ago. I realize you've probably never heard music like this, but I happen to like it."

"You call that music?" Aragorn asked, cautiously taking his hands from his ears. "Someone is screaming."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, just a little bit. It's all part of the song, though." She reached over and turned the radio down. "I'm sorry if it was a bit overwhelming. I like my music loud, but I should have realized that you probably wouldn't appreciate it. And that type of music doesn't really appeal to everyone."

Now that the sound had lessened, Aragorn approached the table cautiously. "Where is the sound coming from? I see no musicians, or this band you mentioned." Aragorn did not quite know the word band, but from her context, he assumed it meant a grouping of musicians.

A small smile played on Lauren's face as she watched Aragorn inspect the radio. "I don't know all the details of how it works, but I can tell you that the musicians perform in a special room, and the music is recorded on either magnetic tape or on CD's with a concentrated beam of light called a laser. The music is then played back and transmitted over radio waves, which are picked up by the antenna and sent to the speakers." When she finished, she noticed the blank look on Aragorn's face. "Too much?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in inquiry.

"I thought you said you did not know the details of how it worked," Aragorn said slowly, staring at her.

"I don't," Lauren said with a wry grin. "That was pretty much a general overview, but I'll admit that understanding even that much requires quite a bit of modern technical knowledge. I'll try to avoid any more technical explanations. Suffice it to say that what the radio plays has been recorded from an earlier performance."

"That explanation will do well enough," Aragorn allowed. "Do you mind if we make it stop?" He did not want to be insulting, but he could not stand much more of that noise.

She chuckled again and reached over to turn the radio off. She sat down at the table and gestured for Aragorn to take the other chair. "Would you like some fresh squeezed lemonade?" At that, two glasses appeared in front of them, and Lauren picked hers up and took a long drink before placing it back on the table. "There's nothing better on a hot summer's day than an ice cold lemonade." She leaned back in her chair and sighed contentedly.

Aragorn looked questioningly at the pieces of ice in his glass before taking an experimental sip. The flavor was very close to a favorite drink of his from his childhood, and he took a longer drink. He studied Lauren for a moment. "You seem to be remarkably cheerful. Are you always like this?"

Lauren heard the undertone in his voice. "Cheerful for someone whose life is hanging by a thread, you mean?" The smile was gone from her face now as she looked seriously back at him.

"I did not intend to upset you," Aragorn said quickly, raising a hand in a placating gesture.

"You didn't," Lauren assured him. "I had a lot of time to think while you were gone. There really wasn't much else for me to do. The lines of a song came to me and kind of struck home. The title of the song was 'Live Like You Were Dying'."

Aragorn frowned. "That does not sound like a song that would give hope or inspire one to be very cheerful."

Lauren shrugged easily. "It actually is a more hopeful song than the title would suggest. It tells the story of a man who, in his early forties found out that he might have a terminal illness. The news changed the way he chose to live his life. He took the time to do all the things he had wanted to do but thought he would have time to do later. He changed the way he treated those around him, became a better husband and friend and forgave those who had hurt him in the past. The chorus of the song talks about living like each day was a gift."

She sighed and ran a hand through her now dry hair. "The world I live in is a very fast-paced one, Aragorn. Many people, myself included, get caught up in their jobs, in furthering their careers, and rushing from one thing to the next. We tend not to eat right, not to get enough sleep, and to take very little time to relax and simply enjoy our lives. We like to believe that we are in control of our lives, our destinies, but this accident has proven that to be an illusion. I don't know how things are going to happen with this, Aragorn. I have no idea if I'm going to wake up in the next few minutes, or never wake up again. I know this realm isn't reality, but I intend to enjoy my time here and do the things I may never have another chance to do." She looked around at the white sands and the sunlight gleaming on the waves. "And even in my normal life, it was a rare occasion that I was able to just relax on a beautiful beach like this."

"Should you not be trying to find a way to wake up, to get back to your life?" Aragorn could understand what the song was trying to say, but he didn't think the sentiment applied in this case. "As you said, this place is not reality. You cannot change the way you interact with the people in your life while you are here. To truly affect how you live your life, you must actually be living your life, not residing in some dream world." Aragorn leaned toward her, trying to make his point.

Lauren threw a hand up in the air. "And if I knew how to do that, I would. Do you think I haven't been trying?" Lauren's voice rose as she spoke. "As I said, after you left last time, I had a lot of time to think. I tried everything I could think of to reconnect with reality, but nothing worked. I have no desire to die, but I can't find a way to wake up. It's like there's a barrier between the two worlds that I can't cross." Her frustration with her situation was clear in her voice. "And the way I figure it, if I'm stuck here, I might as well enjoy myself. Do you have a problem with that?" The dark expression on her face made it clear that if he did have a problem with her reasoning, he would be better off to keep the opinion to himself.

Aragorn simply raised an eyebrow as he stared at her, unknowingly imitating Lord Elrond. His granddaughter seemed to have a little bit of a temper.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before dropping her head down to rest in her hands in embarrassment. After a moment of silence, she raised her head and looked up to meet Aragorn's eyes. "Forgive me. I seem to be a bit more on edge than I thought. But as beautiful as this place is, it's beginning to get to me. Not knowing what is going on is driving me crazy. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead, but that's about all I can say. I need to keep myself distracted to keep my mind from dwelling on what kind of condition my body is in. Can you help me do that?" She looked back to him with a pleading look, resting her hands on the table.

"I can try," Aragorn replied. He reached over and placed his hand over hers to let her know there were no hard feelings. "And there is nothing to forgive. This is a difficult situation for you. How do you wish me to distract you?"

She reached over and placed her other hand over his for a moment in a gesture of thanks before pulling back and settling deeper into her chair. "Tell me about your life. I have a feeling that's a pretty interesting story, and all I know at this point is that we may be related. What do you do, what was your childhood like, and where in the world did you get that beautiful sword?"

Aragorn sat back in his chair and smiled at her. "In my life, I have been a Ranger, a protector, a healer, a soldier, a Captain in an army, a tracker, a hunter, and a leader of men." Aragorn replied, thinking carefully to make sure he did not miss a role. "As for the sword, your interest surprises me. I assumed from your earlier comments that people no longer carry swords in your time."

"Oh, they don't," Lauren replied, waving a hand in the air. "Most people couldn't care less about them." Her smile widened, and the mischievous look in her eyes reminded Aragorn far too much of the twins in that moment as she continued. "But then, I'm not most people. I collect swords. I've done a lot of traveling, and have collected interesting swords from several different countries." Her eyes drifted down to Aragorn's side where Anduril hung in its sheath. "But not even in museums have I seen a sword like the one you carry. I don't think it's like even exists in my world."

Aragorn smiled at her. "There is no sword like it even in Middle-earth. The sword I carry is Andúril, Flame of the West, the sword of Elendil re-forged by the elves of Rivendell."

Lauren had been about to ask Aragorn to tell her the full story of the sword when a certain word caught her attention. She stared at him for a moment before she was able to say a word. "Elves?"

Aragorn heard the disbelief in her voice, and understood her confusion. "You have never seen an elf, have you? They were beginning to leave the shores of Middle-earth in my time. There are probably none left in your time. But yes, I come from a time when elves still walked the land."

Lauren stared at him in confusion. "You're pulling my leg, here. I just don't get the joke."

"What?" Aragorn asked, confused by her reaction and her words. "I have not touched your leg."

"It means you're kidding me, but I just don't see why." Lauren was shaking her head slowly as she tried to figure out the joke.

"Why would you think I was kidding?" Aragorn asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched her.

"Because elves aren't real. They don't exist." The tone of voice Lauren used made it quite clear that she believed her words and thought anyone who believed otherwise to be delusional.

"I can assure you, they do." Aragorn tried to convince her of the truth of his words.

"No, they don't." Lauren's expression was growing darker as she became frustrated.

"Yes, they do." Aragorn kept his voice calm, but he was beginning to become frustrated as well with her stubborn refusal to believe him.

Lauren shook her head as their conversation reverted to sounding like it was occurring between two children. Arguing that way would accomplish nothing. "Everyone knows elves are only a myth. They occur in fantasy, in children's tales, but they were never real. Elves are no more real than dragons." Lauren waved a hand in dismissal of the very idea.

Aragorn spoke slowly, trying to convince Lauren he was speaking the truth. "Lauren, I was raised by elves, they have been my greatest friends and allies, and my wife is an elf. Well, half-elf, at least. I can assure you that elves do in fact exist. As do dragons, though they are very rare now. Most of them have been killed." His last two comments were rather casual, as that point was not what he was trying to convince her of.

She gave him a skeptical look, crossing her arms over her chest. "Uh huh. Dragons are real, but are now extinct? I suppose you, being a great knight, helped to slay all the dragons?" She shook her head, feeling she was getting off topic. "So what do these elves look like? I'm picturing Santa's helpers or the Keebler® elves here. If you married one, I'm assuming that's not what they really look like."

Again, Aragorn had no idea what she was talking about, but he could answer her question. "In many ways, elves resemble humans very closely. They have pointed ears, and are fairer of face than humans. They have a glow about them and their voices are lyrical. Once you have seen an elf, you will never forget what they look like. They are stronger and capable of moving more quickly than any human. They have great wisdom, and they are immortal." Aragorn leaned forward in concern. "Are tales of them not told in your world?"

Lauren shook her head at his words. "Like I said, just tales of fantasy and legend. I don't know if I even believe you. I've known all my life that elves were not real, and now someone in a dream tells me they were. I think I'll need a little more proof than that."

Aragorn sighed. Her skepticism may be difficult to overcome. She was proving to be just as stubborn as everyone else in his family. "You and I are proof. My bloodline was descended from elves, and since I married Arwen, you are also descended from elves."

She raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief, and for a moment, Aragorn was reminded very strongly of Lord Elrond. Even if she did not believe him, Aragorn knew with certainty that she was descended from the house of Elrond. No one else would be able to look so much like him. He sighed and spoke again. "It seems that much of your heritage has been lost in the mists of time. Would you like to hear the tales that I was told as a child? I can tell you the story of Arda's creation, the awakening of the First and Second People, and the many ages that passed before my time."

She shrugged, but her curiosity was now piqued. "I'm always up for a good story. But this sounds like a long one. Let me get more comfortable." She looked off to the side, and a covered platform appeared with two soft plush armchairs and a small table between them. She stood up and grabbed her glass, heading toward the more comfortable chairs. "Are you coming?"

Aragorn stood up and followed her, taking his own drink with him. As they made themselves comfortable, Lauren pulled her feet up in the chair and tucked them underneath her. She turned her full attention to Aragorn. "I'm ready. Tell me a story, Grandpa?" Her eyes twinkled with mischief, and Aragorn couldn't help but notice how young she looked.

"Very well," Aragorn said, inclining his head toward her. "It all began with music; the music of the Ainur." Aragorn told her of how the music of the Ainur created Arda and all upon its surface. He spoke of Melkor and his uprising against Ilúvatar, and of the coming of the Firstborn of the Children of Ilúvatar, the elves. Aragorn talked for many hours, telling Lauren a somewhat condensed version of the history of Middle-earth. He told her of all the wondrous creatures that existed there, dwarfs and ents, dragons and balrogs. She listened with rapt attention, her eyes never leaving his face. She was as caught up in the stories as Aragorn was. Her face echoed the horror he had felt the first time he had heard the stories of the Silmarils and the kinslaying on the shores of Valinor, at Alqualondë. While he could not tell her every detail, he managed to get in the story of the awakening of the humans, the fall of Gondolin, the tale of Beren and Lúthien, and most of the details of Elrond and Elros' bloodline. He described the defeat of Morgoth, the founding of Númenor with Elros as the first Númenórean king, and skimmed over the long list of kings of the Númenórean line. He had just finished the tale of Isildur's refusal to destroy the one ring after he had cut it off of Sauron's hand when he realized that he was beginning to fade away again.

Lauren smiled at him as he began to leave the dream realm. "I'll expect you to finish that story tomorrow."

"Make sure you are still here when I arrive tomorrow," Aragorn said. He was still worried that she might not be here when he came back.

She smiled at his concern. "Don't worry. I'll be here. I'm not going to die. Not until I know how that story ends, anyway. And since it doesn't look like I'll be waking up anytime soon, I'll see you tomorrow," she said as he faded completely away.

Aragorn opened his eyes to see the sun shining through the windows of his chambers. He looked over to see Arwen sitting on the edge of the bed watching him. "Did you see her?" she asked softly.

"Yes," Aragorn said. "And I am sure of it now. She is our granddaughter. She is every bit as stubborn as Eldarion." He sat up in the bed and ran a hand tiredly through his hair.

"What was she being stubborn about?" Arwen asked.

"She did not believe that elves were real," Aragorn responded with a glint of humor in his eyes.

"I hope you were able to convince her otherwise," Arwen replied with a smile on her lips.

"I was trying," Aragorn said. "I was telling her the history of Middle-earth and our peoples when I began to wake up. I will simply have to finish telling the tale when I return tonight."

"So you plan to return?" Arwen asked.

"Until she awakes, yes. She needs someone to keep her company. She told me that she was getting lonely there by herself. I cannot simply abandon her." Aragorn waved his hand in emphasis.

"I would not expect you to. But do you think you will be able to return as often as you wish?" Arwen was afraid that he might be getting his hopes up and that he might not be able to return.

"I do not know. All I can do is try."


	3. Story Time

A/N: Disclaimers in first chapter. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. One of the songs used in this chapter is 'Time' and it is performed by Sarah McLachlan. I don't have any rights to the song.

A/N2: I seem to have forgotten to include a note in earlier chapters that in the majority of my stories, I go a little AU and assume that Gilraen was killed along with Arathorn, leaving Elrond as Aragorn's only 'parent'. That AU assumption is used in this story as well. This is something I do knowingly, not a mistake. Sorry for any confusion.

Chapter Three - Story Time

The next night, Aragorn went to bed early and fell asleep easily. He found himself back on the sunlit beach and looked around for Lauren. All he had to do was follow the sound of her radio. The sound was soft and gentle this time. He could even admit that it actually sounded like music. As he approached the covered platform, he could see Lauren curled up in the chair that he had left her in. Had she moved at all? He could hear her singing softly along with the song on the radio as he came up behind her. The song was soft and rather mournful. She was singing something about having only shadows to keep her company, and needing more time. ("Time" by Sarah McLachlan) The words she sang, combined with the weak sound of her voice concerned him.

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked. He grew more concerned when she twisted slowly around to face him. Her face was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. There was a serious look on her face and pain showed clearly in her eyes. "What's wrong, Lauren?" He swiftly moved over to crouch in front of her chair.

"I don't think I'm going to make it," she whispered. She had drawn her legs up into the chair and wrapped her arms around them, and she once again rested her head on her knees and gazed off at the sea..

"What do you mean? Has something happened?" The healer in him took over and he reached out to put his hand on her forehead. It felt cool, cooler in fact than she should be in this warm weather.

"You could say something happened," she said slowly. "I think my heart stopped beating."

Aragorn quickly grabbed her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was there, but faster than it should be.

"They got it started again," she commented wryly, turning her gaze back toward Aragorn at his quick movement. "But I felt it stop. This place began to fade around me as the barrier thinned between the worlds. I could feel them working on me, the electrical charge going through me as they tried to re-start my heart. I guess it worked, and this world snapped back into focus, but I haven't felt too well since then."

Aragorn didn't doubt it. Given her pallor, the temperature of her skin and her sluggish reactions, he was fairly sure she was suffering from shock. Aragorn had thought she had been taking all this a bit too calmly. This close brush with death must have made her truly realize how precarious her situation was. That realization combined with the physical pain she had felt had pushed her into a state of shock. Knowing that he needed to get her warmed up, he looked around for something he could use as a blanket. As he thought of it, a light blanket appeared on the table. It seemed that Lauren was not the only one who could affect their surroundings. He reached over and grabbed the blanket, then shook it out and draped it around her shoulders. "I believe you are in shock," Aragorn explained when she looked at him with a question on her face. "You should lie down while we get you warmed up."

"OK," she said. She reached down to the side of the chair she was sitting in and pushed a button. Aragorn watched in amazement as the front of her chair moved up and came to rest in a horizontal position. Lauren stretched her legs out and snuggled deeper into the chair while rearranging the blanket. She noticed Aragorn's confused expression. "It's called a recliner."

Aragorn nodded. The name made sense, as the chair did allow one to recline. But he was somewhat concerned that Lauren simply obeyed him without question. He already knew it was not in her nature to be so passive. A thought occurred to him. "Have you eaten or slept since you've been here?"

She gave him a confused look. "No. I don't need to eat here; I haven't been hungry at all. And I don't think it's even possible for me to sleep. I'm already dreaming this world. If I slept here, where would I go in my dreams?"

Aragorn shook his head. "It is not important that you actually sleep. But you will feel better if you are able to eat and rest. That is what I would recommend were I treating your physical body." Lauren simply nodded in response. Aragorn knew what he wanted, and as he thought about it, a bowl of chicken soup and a cup of hot tea appeared. Gesturing for her to eat, Aragorn sat down in the other chair.

Lauren smiled as she breathed in the steam of the soup. "This is just what my mother would fix for me as a child when I was ill." She looked up at him. "Thank you."

Nodding, Aragorn settled back into his chair and watched her as she ate. Her color was beginning to improve, and the look in her eyes was not as distant as it had been. He was glad to see that she seemed to be improving rapidly. As she finished the soup and was slowly sipping the last of her tea, Aragorn spoke again. "Are you feeling better now?"

"Yes, much. Thank you again. It won't be long before I'm back playing in the ocean." Her grin was not quite as bright as he had seen before, but she was trying to recover her more cheerful demeanor.

"Perhaps so, but not just yet," Aragorn said firmly. "You need more rest to recover fully."

"OK," Lauren agreed. "But only if you finish your story. What happened with Isildur and the ring?"

Aragorn was somewhat surprised that she was so intent on him finishing the story and that she remembered how to say Isildur's name correctly. He had told her the names and histories of a great number of men and elves yesterday, and he knew that the names of his time sounded very odd to her. It was a testament to her interest that she even remembered which name went along with the story of the ring.

"Very well," Aragorn said. He had her turn off the radio while he picked up the story where he had left off the previous night. After describing how the ring had betrayed Isildur to his death and was then lost, Aragorn told her that Isildur's youngest son had been kept safely at Rivendell when his father and older brothers were lost. He skipped all of the intervening generations and simply told her that his father and therefore he were directly descended from Isildur's youngest son. Then he told her the story of his father, Arathorn.

Her expression softened with sympathy when he told her of his parents being killed by orcs when he was but two years of age.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I can't imagine what that must have been like for you."

"Thank you for your sympathy," he said. "It happened many years ago, and I was taken to Imladris where Lord Elrond raised me as one of his own sons." Aragorn's own expression softened as he thought about the elves he considered his family.

"So you were raised by the same elf who fought alongside Elendil and Isildur in the Last Alliance?"

"Yes," Aragorn said, still surprised at how quickly she had absorbed the history of Middle-earth and their common lineage.

Lauren hesitated before speaking again. "I don't know quite the proper way to phrase this question, so I'll just ask. I'm sure he was a bit…disappointed by Isildur's refusal to destroy the ring when they had the chance. Did he hold your ancestor's actions against you at all?"

"No," Aragorn hastened to assure her. "Though I often wondered what my life would have been like had my parents not been killed, I could not have had a more loving father than Elrond. And when I joined his family, I gained two brothers in his twin sons. I cannot even imagine a life without the three of them in it."

"So you had a good childhood?"

"I did," Aragorn said. He went on to tell her many tales of growing up in the house of Elrond with the twins causing all manner of chaos. Lauren laughed hysterically at most of his tales, and Aragorn felt he should change the subject to give her a chance to catch her breath. He went on to describe his years with the Rangers and as Thorongil in the lands of Rohan and Gondor, as well as his years of adventuring with Legolas and his long time love for Arwen. After describing most of his life, Aragorn began the tale of the finding of the ring, the forming of the fellowship, and the events of the War of the Ring.

Lauren listened in silence, her eyes wide as she was swept away into a distant time and place that she had never experienced. Aragorn's skill as a storyteller was such that Lauren felt as if she were there, beside him, Legolas, and Gimli throughout their struggles. Tears welled in her eyes as he spoke of the fall of Gandalf and Boromir and all those who perished along the way. Though the story was quite serious, Aragorn could not help the grin that spread across his face at her slack jawed reaction when he described the return of Gandalf the White.

"We had much the same reaction," he said. "Gandalf's return was unexpected, to put it mildly, but brought a ray of hope into a very dark time." Lauren's expression grew grave and somewhat distant as he described the battle of Helm's Deep. Her eyes focused once more on his as he described Gandalf arriving just in time with Éomer and all of his men. Aragorn watched her face as he continued his tale. Everything she was feeling showed clearly on her face, and her emotions mirrored much of what Aragorn had felt at the time. Throughout his tale of the paths of the dead and the battle of Pelennor Fields, she remained quiet, though her eyes grew quite wide when he revealed his plan to lead an army to assail Mordor. "You do not approve?" he asked her.

"I certainly don't mean any disrespect," she began, "but are you crazy?" Her expression now showed wide-eyed disbelief.

"Why is it that those words always preface a very disrespectful statement?" Aragorn asked with a glint of humor in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes and ignored the question. "That plan was nothing more than suicide! You had to know that your army didn't stand a chance against the forces still within the gates of Mordor."

"We were not trying to win the battle, but merely provide a distraction while Frodo and Sam sneaked past the orcs to destroy the ring. We did not expect to survive."

She shook her head. "It sounds pretty desperate to me."

"It was," Aragorn admitted. "That was our one and only chance."

"Well, you obviously didn't die there, so what happened?"

Aragorn described the final battle and everyone watching in amazement as Barad-dûr crumbled and fell to the ground, knowing that Frodo had succeeded. In short order, Aragorn described Frodo and Sam's rescue, his coronation and wedding to Arwen, and how Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo sailed beyond the world to the land of the Valar, Valinor. When he finished, Lauren just stared at him in amazement.

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked. He was expecting a bit more of a reaction from her.

"Wow," she said finally. "That story is unbelievable. Truly and completely unbelievable." Her voice had a slightly dejected tone to it, and there was a frown on her face.

"What troubles you?" Aragorn asked in concern. He was worried that she might be feeling pain from her physical body again.

She met his eyes steadily. "I'm trying to decide if any of this is real. After hearing your tale, I'm more convinced than ever that you're a figment of my imagination."

Aragorn sighed. "I though we had already settled this issue. I am real and am able to visit this realm due to my gift of foresight and our blood connection."

She waved a hand in dismissal of his explanation. "Yes, yes, I know that's what we decided, but what if that was just my mind providing rationalizations for your presence in my dream? I have a very active imagination, you see, and that is just the type of thing I would invent to convince myself that you were real." She pushed the blanket aside, quickly closed the recliner and practically leapt to her feet, walking to the edge of the platform they were on before turning to walk to the opposite edge.

Watching her pace back and forth, Aragorn stifled a sigh of frustration. "And why would you decide _now_ that I am not real?"

"Because I've never heard any of what you just told me. I realize that there's a lot of human history that has been lost along the way, but what you're talking about is a totally unknown history that covers thousands of years. We've found the remains of many ancient civilizations and cities, but none of them are anything like the way you've described Minas Tirith. And I'm having a very difficult time believing that all the beings you mentioned ever existed. Elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, ents, dragons and trolls; we've never found any evidence that any of them existed."

Her expression was intent as she paced back and forth, gesturing with her hands as she spoke. "Paleontologists have uncovered the bones of a large number of dinosaur bones, and they predate the development of modern man, so why haven't we found the bones of any of those beings?" She paused a moment as a thought tickled the back of her mind. "Wait a minute, I saw something in the news recently that may relate to this. What was it?" She snapped her fingers suddenly. "That's right. There was an article in the news a few months ago about the discovery of some skeletons of some very small humans in Indonesia. They supposedly only grew to about the size of a three-year-old child, and lived somewhere in the range of 20,000 years ago. Could those have been hobbits?"

Aragorn's eyes widened when Lauren mentioned that the beings who might have been hobbits had lived 20,000 years before her time. He had been thinking they might be separated by a few thousand years, but certainly not twenty thousand years.

Lauren ignored Aragorn's surprised reaction and continued pacing and thinking out loud. "OK, that might lend credibility to your story, but what about the others? Let's see, you said elves looked like humans except for a few outward characteristics. So I'm assuming their skeletons would just appear human. What about dwarves? We still have people now who were once referred to as dwarves. Something in their DNA prevents them from growing to full stature. I suppose archeologists would have assumed any dwarf skeletons were simply shorter humans. It doesn't sound like ents really had a skeletal structure made of bone, so they would probably decompose completely."

Aragorn was feeling very odd listening to Lauren talk about finding the remains of all the races that had lived on Middle-earth. "Lauren, as one who lives among these races you are so casually dismissing as being nothing more than remains, I am finding this entire train of thought somewhat distressing. Would you mind finding some other topic to discuss?"

She turned and looked at him in surprise. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about how that sounded. But I'm trying to make sense of all of this and determine if any of it could be true."

"I realize that, and I apologize for interrupting you, but could you find another way to come to your conclusions? And would you please sit down? I am becoming rather dizzy." Aragorn was growing rather exasperated with her pacing and her continued disbelief.

"Oh, sorry," she said as she sat back down in the chair. "I tend to think better if I'm on the move, but you're not the first person to ask me to stop pacing while I think. Although, you were more polite about it than most."

Aragorn smiled slightly at her comment. She sat absolutely still and stared off into the distance at the waves rolling onto the shore. She remained still and silent for so long that Aragorn was about to tell her that she could pace if she wanted to.

"Waves," she murmured softly. "An island lost beneath the sea."

"Are you speaking of Númenor?" Aragorn asked her.

"Atlantis, actually," she responded. "I thought that there was something familiar in your story yesterday, but I got so caught up in the rest of it that it slipped my mind. There is a legend in my time about the lost city of Atlantis. It was said to be a beautiful, idyllic place with a very well educated people who created many wonders and technological advances. The island was supposedly destroyed by an earthquake; possibly caused by an underwater volcano. I believe the original legend even held that the island was destroyed by the gods as punishment for their transgressions."

"Atalantë," Aragorn said softly.

"What did you say?" Lauren asked.

"After the drowning of Númenor, it was referred to as Atalantë."

She looked steadily at him for some time. "You failed to mention that earlier. I am beginning to think the legend dates back much further in time than is currently thought."

"So, you believe I am real now?" Aragorn asked with a smile.

"I'm still debating that," she said. "As I see it, there are only two reasonable theories, and I'm trying to decide between them."

"What are your theories?" Aragorn leaned forward slightly in anticipation of hearing her answer.

"The first one is that you are real and that everything you've told me is the truth." She held up one finger to indicate that it was the first theory.

"I would tend to hope you would choose that explanation, but what is your other theory?"

Holding up a second finger, she explained her second theory. "The other theory holds that you are simply something my mind came up with to keep me from getting too bored here by myself. My mind obviously pulled elements of history, fantasy and even items I've seen on the news recently and combined them into a fantastical tale that I would truly love to believe. And quite honestly, that explanation is much more plausible than the idea that elves and the other beings really existed. Although, if I actually wake up, I could write this all down, sell the story and make a lot of money." She grinned at the thought of turning this dream into a best-selling novel.

Aragorn shook his head. "You are definitely showing proof of your lineage. We have all been accused of being stubborn from time to time."

"OK, yes, I do have a stubborn streak, but I also have a very logical, rational mind. I have to think through all the possibilities and decide, based on the evidence before me, which theory is more likely."

Aragorn sighed and sat back in his chair, knowing which of the two theories would be more easily believed. He did not think he would be able to convince her that he was indeed real. "Is there anything that might convince you that your second theory is not correct?"

She paused in thought for a moment. "A few things, actually. Your story was very detailed, and I've never been that great with history, so I doubt I could come up with that level of detail. My imagination, great as it is, does have its limits, and I seriously don't think I would have been able to invent ents and the whole ring storyline. Not to mention the fact that I never would have come up with the idea that you had of distracting Sauron and his forces by basically throwing away your life and the lives of all those who rode with you. But even with all of that, you have to admit that it's still easier to believe that than your story."

He was getting rather exasperated with his granddaughter. Aragorn knew this was real, why was it so difficult for her to accept? He felt himself fading again as he began to wake. "So, what have you decided?"

She grinned at him. "I'll think it all over and let you know tomorrow."

"Lauren," Aragorn practically growled the name in frustration.

"No, my love. I hope you have not forgotten my name."

Aragorn's eyes flew open as he heard his wife's voice. "Arwen!"

"So you do remember my name," the humor in her eyes made it clear that she was not angry. "Problems with our granddaughter?"

Sitting up, Aragorn ran his hands through his hair. "She is impossible!"

"What has she done now?" Arwen asked the question with a small smile on her face.

"She still refuses to believe me. I told her everything about us, and she still insists on calling me a, what did she say… a figment of her imagination!" Aragorn threw a hand up in the air as he remembered Lauren's comments.

Arwen smiled at Aragorn's obvious pique. "If she does not know of the existence of elves, the story of our life would be somewhat difficult to believe."

"She is only being stubborn in her disbelief," Aragorn insisted. He yawned suddenly and looked at Arwen. "I feel like I have had no sleep at all." He lay back down. "I need just a few more hours of sleep. Please make my excuses to the court."

"If you fall asleep, you will very likely return to visit Lauren," Arwen pointed out.

Aragorn's eyes opened again and he sighed. "It appears I am not as tired as I thought."

Arwen laughed and took the hand her husband extended toward her to help pull him out of bed.


	4. Realizations

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren.

A/N2: I seem to have forgotten to include a note in earlier chapters that in the majority of my stories, I go a little AU and assume that Gilraen was killed along with Arathorn, leaving Elrond as Aragorn's only 'parent'. That AU assumption is used in this story as well. This is something I do knowingly, not a mistake. Sorry for any confusion.

Chapter Four - Realizations

Throughout the next day, Aragorn was having trouble staying awake. Legolas and Gimli were visiting, and he felt he had not been able to enjoy their presence as much as usual due to his fatigue. The three of them and Arwen were relaxing in one of the parlors in front of a roaring fire when Aragorn felt his eyes sliding closed once more. He found himself unable to fight it and let his head fall back on the cushion.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the midst of what must surely be a nightmare. A thundering roar filled his ears and he felt as if he would be deafened if he remained there long. There was a strange flashing light that lit up his surroundings in pulses that seemed to match the pounding drums that surrounded him. In those brief moments of glaring light, he could see a solid wall of people around him, pressing in on every side, gyrating wildly. He was sure he was about to be killed, and began struggling, trying to find a way out through the crowd.

"Aragorn?" A hand touched his shoulder, and he abruptly opened his eyes to find his wife and friends staring at him in concern. "What happened?" Arwen asked. She had moved to wake Aragorn from his sleep as he began thrashing around, fighting something in his dreams.

Wiping a hand across his eyes, Aragorn glanced around with relief at finding himself back home. "I must have fallen asleep," Aragorn answered. "I did not find myself on the beach this time, but rather in a frenzied mass of people. It seemed that they were demons from another world, trying to claim my soul."

Arwen frowned. "Is Lauren in danger?" She took a seat next to him and reached over to hold his hand.

"If she is in that place, I would imagine she is," Aragorn said worriedly, clasping her hand in response.

Legolas and Gimli had been watching this conversation in confusion. "Who is Lauren?" Legolas asked.

" Aye, and how could you _possibly_ tell she's in danger?" Gimli added, looking back and forth between them.

Aragorn and Arwen exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. Arwen encouraged Aragorn to tell them, and Aragorn gave his consent without ever saying a word.

Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Aragorn began to tell Legolas and Gimli what he had been experiencing the past three nights.

Legolas and Gimli listened to his tale in silence and Aragorn watched their reactions. Gimli's expression darkened and he was frowning by the time Aragorn had finished. Legolas, on the other hand, seemed quite intrigued by the story. Aragorn kept the tale brief, wanting to get back to Lauren in case she needed help, but knowing he needed to inform his closest friends what was happening.

"I don't like this," Gimli said. "How do you know she is what she says? She could be a witch, trying to ensnare you."

"A witch?" Aragorn was extremely amused at the thought of Lauren being a witch. She didn't exactly seem to be the type.

Legolas was just as amused, though for a different reason. "Gimli, do you remember that you once accused the Lady Galadriel of being a witch? You changed your mind quite quickly after meeting her. You could just as easily be wrong in this case."

"She does not mean me any harm," Aragorn said. "I have yet to convince her that I am real, so how could she have ill intentions toward what she still thinks is a figment of her imagination?"

"Oh… but she could be lying, laddie," Gimli said seriously. "What if she is trying to seem harmless while she plots your downfall?"

Aragorn shook his head. "I do not feel that is the case."

"You are already under her spell," Gimli countered. "These dreams _are_ affecting you. I watched you today, and you were unable to concentrate on anything. If you had not had loyal advisors with you, you would have ended up signing a treaty with an enemy that could destroy your kingdom."

"I did not have a meeting with any enemies today, Master Dwarf. I was only dealing with minor details of the realm. I will admit my concentration was not what it could have been, but that is only because I am weary. My kingdom is in no danger from my lapse."

"Today, maybe," Gimli pressed. "But why are you so tired? Because you do not get enough rest at night. How long can this continue before you can't see to your kingdom?"

Arwen glanced worriedly at Aragorn. She was not worried that Lauren was a witch, but she _was _becoming concerned about the effect this contact was having on Aragorn. He was unable to get enough rest at night, and she knew he could not go without rest for long. "He does have a point, my love," she spoke softly. "I could prepare one of Ada's teas to help you rest. You need a dreamless sleep for at least one night so that you can regain your strength."

"I do not need any of Ada's teas," Aragorn protested. "I am well enough. But if it becomes necessary, I will turn over the affairs of the kingdom to Faramir for a day and make a tea myself that will prompt several hours of dreamless sleep. Tonight, however, I need to make contact with Lauren. She may be in danger. I cannot simply leave her there to face whatever nightmares may exist in her mind. This discussion would be better spent trying to help me find a way to convince her that I am real or a way to rescue her from those demons."

"I still do not think you should go back there. It is too dangerous." Gimli would not be swayed from his opinion.

"He has to go back," Legolas spoke up. "You underestimate the abilities of the peredhel line, Gimli. You seem to forget that Arwen is of both Lord Elrond's blood and the Lady Galadriel's. Her gifts of foresight are significant, as are Aragorn's. I do not find it difficult to believe that Aragorn can communicate with a blood relation, even over the many years that separate them."

"So why is he only now showing this skill?" Gimli asked skeptically. "And why is this the only family member he has seen in this way?"

"She is injured, possibly dying," Legolas pointed out. "Her mind is trapped in a world of dreams, and sought some form of comfort. Aragorn responded to her pain."

Gimli just stared at him, and Aragorn spoke up. "I am not leaving her there alone, Gimli. She is my granddaughter and she needs my help. I feel that our meeting in this world was not by chance, but rather part of Ilúvatar's design. I do not know how this will end, but I must go back." Gimli knew by the tone of Aragorn's voice that the matter was settled. It made no difference what Gimli thought, Aragorn intended to go back.

"Can you bring someone along to this dream world?" he asked instead. If Aragorn were going to face this witch, he wanted someone else along to watch his back.

Aragorn frowned. "I do not know. This is new to me. I have been able to summon things like a blanket or a bowl of soup, but that is entirely different than summoning a living being. If I did that, would I simply be summoning the image, or the actual person?"

"It would be worth trying," Legolas pointed out. "If you need help in this dream, try summoning myself and Gimli. I believe you would have more of a chance of actually contacting a sleeping elf, as elves can often control their dreams, and if called, may find their way to you."

"And if you were able to do that, you may have a better chance of convincing Lauren you actually exist." Arwen pointed out.

Aragorn thought about it for a moment. "I will attempt it, but I do not think that would fully convince Lauren. She would simply think that the elf was also created by her imagination. She is nearly impossible to budge once she has made up her mind. I may not have known her for long, but her stubbornness became apparent very quickly." He shook his head in annoyance. "This is taking too long. Anything could have happened to her by now. I need to get back to sleep." He paused for a moment, thinking that he had never thought of sleep as a way to help anyone before.

Arwen nodded. "Very well, we will retire to our chambers early tonight. I will keep watch and be prepared to wake you if you seem to be in distress."

Aragorn wanted to protest that if he were in distress, Lauren would likely be in more trouble, and he would have to stay there to help her. But one look at Arwen's face convinced him otherwise. She was worried about this, and her solution was the only one she would allow. Aragorn nodded in acquiescence. He looked over at Legolas and Gimli. "If you want me to attempt to summon the both of you, you should try going to sleep as well. We will all have to make an early night of it."

Legolas nodded, an expectant expression on his face. He was eagerly hoping this would work. Gimli, on the other hand, had a scowl on his face. It was clear that he did not like any of this.

They all retired to their rooms, and Aragorn lay down on the bed with Arwen sitting down beside him. Aragorn was exhausted enough that he fell asleep almost the moment his head touched the pillow.

Aragorn drew his sword and spun around as he awoke in the dream world. He looked around in confusion as the chaos he was expecting did not materialize around him. Straightening up, he slowly returned Andúril to its sheath as he found himself in a peaceful meadow. There was a wooded area off to his right. The trees there had fresh green leaves, and the air was heavy with the scent of fresh flowers and new growth. Wherever he was now, it was a calm spring day, and there was no trace of the nightmare realm he had anticipated. Looking around, he was surprised to see Lauren coming toward him out of the trees on horseback. She seemed perfectly fine. When she saw him, she directed her horse toward him. As she reached him, she dismounted and bowed her head, dropping into a somewhat awkward curtsey.

"Welcome back, your highness." Her voice was soft and rather unsure.

"Your highness?" Aragorn asked with a hint of a grin on his lips. "So you decided to believe me after all?"

She kept her gaze down as she answered. "Yes, I do. Please forgive me for doubting you."

Aragorn looked down at her. "Lauren, please look at me." She slowly raised her head and met his eyes. "You do not have to do this. I want you to treat me no differently than you did yesterday."

"Yesterday, I thought of you as an imaginary friend. Today, I know you are a king. I don't know how to act around you. I've never met royalty before." Lauren waved her hand and her face showed a trace of exasperation.

Aragorn fought a smile at her words and gestured for her to rise. She did so slowly, coming to stand before him with an uncertain expression on her face. "Lauren, I am your relation, not your king. I do not expect you to bow before me. I truly only want to be your friend. Please treat me as you would treat any of your other friends."

A mischievous look flitted through her eyes as she looked at him. "I don't think you really want me to treat you like I treat my other friends. I have a feeling that you wouldn't appreciate it."

Aragorn frowned slightly at that. "I will take your word on that. But I must ask that you treat me no differently than you have been."

She nodded then. "Other than the part where I didn't believe you were real, you mean?" That mischievous glint in her eyes was back as strong as it had ever been, and Aragorn knew that she was already past any discomfort in his presence.

"Yes, other than that," Aragorn said. "May I ask what prompted you to change your mind?"

"Several things," she said. "Do you mind if I hold off on the explanation for the moment?"

Aragorn shrugged. She had apparently taken him at his word to treat him exactly as she had been; doing everything in her power to frustrate him. It was clear that she didn't want to talk about that topic right now, so he would ask something else. He had several questions in his mind to choose from. "It appears that you have determined how to alter your surroundings. Have you been anywhere else today?" He was trying to get her to explain the horrible scene he had witnessed earlier. If she had been hurt or tortured by her nightmares, he hoped she trusted him enough to tell him about it.

"A few places," she said evasively.

Aragorn frowned as she refused to say anything else. "You seem remarkably reticent today."

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I don't mean to sound so mysterious, but there's something we need to discuss first."

"What is it?" Aragorn asked compassionately, thinking it must be about what he had seen earlier.

She ignored his question and gestured toward her horse. "Would you care to go for a horseback ride?"

Aragorn suppressed a sigh. It seemed nearly impossible to get an answer out of her today. "I would enjoy that," he said. Lauren seemed to have something specific in mind, so he would simply have to let her do things in her own way. He turned his attention to the horse standing quietly at her side. The horse was a tall, light brown mare. Reaching out, he gently stroked the mare's neck. She nickered softly and turned her head so he could rub between her ears. "She's lovely," Aragorn commented. "Where did you find her?"

Lauren reached up and stroked the horse's neck as she answered. "This is Sahara. She belonged to my grandparents when I was younger. Even though we moved around a lot, we would always visit my grandparents in the summer. I would spend a lot of time roaming the woods around their farm with Sahara. She wasn't a young horse then, and they sold her many years ago. I doubt she's still alive, but I have very fond memories of our time together, and decided to renew our acquaintance."

"Do you have a horse for me?" Aragorn asked.

"I'm sure you have a favorite horse," Lauren answered. "Just think it and it will appear. It seems that this world is created entirely by our minds. When I first arrived here, I needed a safe, quiet, peaceful refuge. I've always loved the beach, so that's where I found myself. When I got bored with playing in the water by myself, I discovered that I could completely change my surroundings. So just think of your horse and see what happens."

Aragorn went along with her and decided to see if he could conjure a living being. He pictured Roheryn, and within moments, his horse was standing in front of him. Aragorn held out his hand and Roheryn lowered his head to nuzzle the outstretched hand.

Lauren looked at the horse admiringly. "He's beautiful. What's his name?"

"Roheryn," Aragorn said. "He was a gift from Arwen years ago. Shall we go?"

Lauren put her foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. "Aren't you going to put a saddle on him?"

"Roheryn is an elven horse," Aragorn explained. "While he will allow a saddle, we both prefer not to use one." Aragorn easily mounted Roheryn and turned to look at Lauren. "This is your territory. Would you care to lead the way?"

She nodded and turned Sahara back toward the trees. Aragorn nudged Roheryn, who moved up to keep pace with the other horse. "What is it that you wish to discuss?" Aragorn asked, unable to contain himself any longer.

She sighed. "Now that I know you're real, things are much more complicated."

"How so?" Aragorn asked. He could not help but think about Gimli's words of caution. He knew that Lauren was who she claimed to be, but what if another was trying to use her against him? What if she was being asked to do something to him? If he were truly imaginary, she may not have much trouble doing it, but if he were real, she would be having second thoughts. He needed to get her to tell him what was bothering her. It could very well end up affecting him.

"The topic of time travel has been a popular one in our world for many years," Lauren started slowly. She shifted into what she thought of as her 'scholar' mode. "While there is no proof that time travel is actually possible, there is really no definitive proof that it is impossible either. Since the writers of my time love asking 'what if' questions, there are a large number of stories that suggest possible outcomes of traveling to or even simply coming into contact with the past."

Aragorn nodded, not sure what she was attempting to say, but knowing that she felt it was important. He let her continue at her own pace, trying to determine if there was anything hidden beneath her words.

"Most of those are cautionary tales," she went on. "If someone from the future changes the past in any way, they could completely screw up their present!" Her voice rose slightly as she tried to make her point.

"You are afraid our contact will somehow alter your time?"

She nodded. "The theory can be summed up by what is called 'The Grandfather Paradox', appropriately enough. If someone were to travel back in time and kill their grandfather, then their father would never be born, and neither would they. But then, if they had never existed, they couldn't have killed their grandfather in the first place. That paradox could destroy the very fabric of time! Do you see how that could be a problem?" She tilted her head to the side and looked at Aragorn as she said the last in a rather sarcastic tone of voice.

Aragorn stared at her in confusion. Maybe Gimli had been right to warn him against this. "Do you have plans to kill me?"

"What?" she asked, momentarily thrown off balance. "Of course not. That was just an example. But I'm afraid that by talking to you, giving you an idea about what the future is like, I could end up changing my time in unimaginable ways. My world is far from perfect, but I can't take the risk of changing anything." She took a deep breath and briefly lowered her head before raising it again and staring into his eyes. "As much as I like having you here, I think it would be better if you left and didn't return."

Aragorn stared into her eyes for a long moment, trying to read her true thoughts and motives. There was fear in her eyes, but was it for the reasons she had stated? If she had been told to do something to hurt him in this realm, she might try to convince him to leave in order to save him. But if he were to do that, what would happen to her? "I have no control over that," he told her truthfully, watching carefully to gauge her reaction. "Whenever I sleep, I find myself here. I would make the same choice if it were in my hands, but it is not my doing that brings me here."

Her face fell and she took a deep breath. "Well, I suppose we can just be careful what we talk about, but I fear I've already said too much. What if I've already altered things so much that I don't exist any more, but because I wasn't actually in the real world, I don't know it? I could be trapped here forever!"

Shaking his head in confusion, Aragorn had to rethink things. From her comments, it appeared that she truly was only concerned about changing the future. "If you had ceased to exist, I doubt you would still remain here." Aragorn pointed out. "I do not see how anything you could possibly tell me will alter your future. There are too many years that separate us."

Her brow wrinkled as she thought the matter through. "OK. You may have a point. If you truly lived twenty thousand years ago, I may not be able to affect things too badly. First off, I don't know a thing about your time and your world, so I can't tell you to make a certain choice differently and change things from that point on. Second, if I show you technological things, you won't have the infrastructure in place to try to re-create any of them, like the radio. A radio wouldn't work without the studio, the transmitting tower, et cetera. And we could just make the best of things since you're apparently stuck here just like I am." She looked back into his eyes. "I need you to promise me that whatever we say and whatever I may show you, you will not make any decisions based on our contact. I need you to live your life and make your decisions exactly as if we had never met. I can't take the chance that our contact will contaminate the timeline. And I'll just have to trust that you are a man of your word and hope that there are no repercussions to our contact."

"I vow that I will live my life and make my decisions as I normally would," Aragorn said. "I am only able to be here because of my foresight, which is a gift from Ilúvatar. I would not wish to displease Him and try to change what He has planned. Whatever you say to me or choose to show me will not affect my decisions."

Lauren nodded solemnly. It was not the best solution, but it was a reasonable compromise, and would hopefully keep things from changing. She knew somehow that Aragorn would do everything in his power to keep any vow he made. She had felt from the moment they met that he was trustworthy. For whatever reason, she trusted this man with her life, and even her world.

"So your fears about changing your time are the reasons you refused to tell me about your day?" Aragorn asked suspiciously. She still had not explained his nightmare.

"Pretty much," she said easily. "I was amusing myself with modern day amusements, and didn't think I should tell you about them. But as long as I have your promise that you will not try to re-create anything I show you, I think we'll be fine. And besides, all the stories about time travel are just that, stories. No one really knows for sure if anything at all will happen."

"May I ask then what you did to amuse yourself today?" Aragorn asked. He was not going to give up on this until he had an answer.

"Besides getting myself rather beat up?" Lauren asked wryly.

"What do you mean?" Aragorn asked quickly. "Did someone hurt you?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, nothing like that. Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. It was all my fault, but at least I found out that injuries and bruises fade very quickly here." Seeing the dark look on Aragorn's face, she hastened to reply. "As much as I love swimming, there are several water sports I have never tried. I thought it would be worth trying it out. There's a sport called surfing in which a person has a long smooth board that they will paddle out into the waves and try to ride back to shore, while standing up. I tried it a few times, but had no clue what I was doing. After the board hit me in the head and I went under the waves, I decided to try something else. I have no idea if I can die in this world, but I have no desire to find out what drowning feels like." She reached up and rubbed the back of her head. "I had a pretty nasty bump for a few minutes there. But after I gave up on surfing, I decided to try roller-blading. That sport has people putting on special boots that have a row of small wheels on the bottom. They can then glide along much faster than a person could walk. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be too skilled with that sport either. I hit the ground so many times I lost count. It was awhile before I felt comfortable sitting down again. You've pointed out how stubborn I can be, so I kept at it for a couple of hours before deciding that I don't have the balance needed for either that or surfing."

She noticed that Aragorn was looking very confused at her description of the sports. "Wait a moment. I may be able to help you envision this." She pulled lightly back on the reins, stopping Sahara on the path. Aragorn stopped Roheryn beside her and looked at her in confusion. She pointed out toward the woods in front of them. "Just watch the trees." As she concentrated, the trees melted away to become the beach again.

Aragorn stared in shock at the scene. This was not the same deserted beach he had shared with Lauren. This beach was covered with people lying on towels, wearing very little, as Lauren had been when they first met. It seemed she had been telling the truth when she said that there was nothing unusual about her attire. There were children playing in the surf and as Aragorn followed Lauren's pointed finger, he saw several young people standing on boards as she had described, riding the waves. That did look rather difficult, actually. Lauren then pointed over to a section of the beach he had not seen at first. A railing had separated the sand from this other section. The separate section had a smooth surface, as if made of a smooth stone, or some other similar material. On that surface, he could see another group of people gliding and doing stunts that he would not have believed possible. He assumed they were doing what she had called 'roller-blading'. "Is this what your world looks like?" he asked hoarsely. He would not have imagined seeing so many people in one place for no more than recreation.

"Some places look like this, yes," she answered. "The beach that you found me on is an idealized version of the world. Few places are actually that pristine and unspoiled. Our world is a very crowded one, and most of the beautiful beaches look more like this, crawling with all the different shapes and sizes of humanity." She waved her hand and the scene disappeared, to be replaced by the woods once more.

Aragorn stared at her, wondering just how much the world had changed since his time. "And you have been nowhere else today?"

"Well, after the failed attempts at surfing and skating, I decided to go dancing. There were bound to be people at a club to keep me company. It was at that point that I found I could imagine actual people. That was also when I started to believe that you were real."

"Why is that?" Aragorn asked.

"Because, though there were a lot of people there, I couldn't hold an intelligent conversation with any of them. They didn't have minds of their own. Oh, I could talk to them, and they would answer me, but they didn't say anything that I didn't expect them to say. They were made up in my mind, so they couldn't react any differently than I might have come to expect." She gave him a wry grin. "You, on the other hand; I never know what you're going to say or do. And since you obviously have an intelligence of your own, you must be real."

Aragorn couldn't fault her reasoning, but he wanted to clear up a suspicion that was forming in his mind. "What was this 'club' like?"

She shrugged. "You would have hated it. It's like most dance clubs. They have music playing at top volume, lights flashing to add energy to the dance floor, and lots of people crowded on the floor."

Aragorn stared at her in amazement. When he had thought she was in danger, she had simply gone dancing? All his worry was for nothing?

"What's wrong?" Lauren asked tentatively. She couldn't quite decipher the look on his face.

"That nightmare was something that you do for fun?" Aragorn asked, his voice rising.

"So you were there," Lauren said. "I thought I saw you for a moment, but then the people moved in between us, and when they moved again, you were gone. I decided at that point that I should probably go horseback riding rather than stay at the club. I didn't want you to show up and be faced with that scene. I'm so sorry. It was never my intention to subject you to the chaos of a club like that; not after your reaction to the radio."

Aragorn rubbed his forehead with his hand. "I thought you were in danger. I came back here expecting to have to free you from your nightmares."

"I did say that I was sorry," she said softly. "And it's not like I was trying to do that to you."

"I do not see how anyone could think of that place as anything other than horrible. All of that time I spent worrying about you and thinking you had been tortured by demonic beings, and you were having fun."

She rolled her eyes. "How many times do you want me to apologize?" She looked warily at him. "You might want to think about calming down a little. I can almost see your blood pressure rising."

All of a sudden, Aragorn and Roheryn disappeared. Lauren looked quickly around. They were nowhere to be seen. "Where did you go? Was it something I said?"


	5. Family

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. One of the songs used in this chapter is 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' and it is performed by Green Day. I don't have any rights to the song.

A/N2: I seem to have forgotten to include a note in earlier chapters that in the majority of my stories, I go a little AU and assume that Gilraen was killed along with Arathorn, leaving Elrond as Aragorn's only 'parent'. That AU assumption is used in this story as well. Sorry for any confusion.

Chapter Five - Family

Aragorn sat up suddenly as he felt someone shaking his shoulder. "What is it?" he asked groggily.

Arwen sighed in relief. "You were beginning to worry me. You started breathing heavier as if you were fighting, and your pulse rate increased. Were you in trouble? How is Lauren?"

Aragorn stared at Arwen. "Lauren is just fine. She was never in any danger at all. That nightmare that I fell into? It was a place that she goes to enjoy herself and go dancing. If I seemed…upset, it was because I found out that all of the energy I spent worrying about her was for nothing. She was off having fun when I had thought she was being tortured by demons."

"Calm yourself," Arwen urged. "This is a good thing, is it not? She is not in trouble, and you are now able to get some rest this night. Come, I have made up a tea that will enable you to sleep without returning to visit with Lauren for the rest of the night."

She brought Aragorn the tea, and Aragorn knew that there would be no arguing with her, so he reluctantly drank it. As he drifted off to sleep, Arwen joined him in the bed and curled up at his side.

The next morning, Aragorn awoke feeling greatly refreshed. He turned his head and saw Arwen watching him from the other side of the bed. "How do you feel this morning?" she asked.

"Quite well," Aragorn said. "Though I am loathe to admit it, the tea worked as well as you had hoped. I did not return to visit Lauren in the night and I am feeling much more alert. Thank you."

Arwen simply smiled at him as they got up and went about getting ready to face the day. They joined Eldarion, Legolas and Gimli for breakfast.

Legolas looked up as they entered. "You look more rested than yesterday. Were you able to sleep?"

"With the help of Ada's tea, yes, I was able to get a few hours of restful sleep." Aragorn nodded in acknowledgment toward Arwen as they took their seats at the table.

"So you did not seek to visit Lauren?" Legolas asked, frowning. "I thought you were concerned for her safety."

"I did not attempt to seek my own rest until I was sure that Lauren did not need my assistance. But when I found out that she was not in any danger, and had never been in danger, I felt it was acceptable for me to leave her and see to my own health."

Legolas nodded, and Aragorn saw that he wanted to ask for the full story. Before Aragorn could tell him though, a small voice piped up. "Ada, may I be excused?"

Aragorn glanced over at Eldarion. He and Arwen had only just arrived, but Eldarion had apparently been here for a while longer. The plate sitting in front of him was empty. "Have you had enough to eat?"

Eldarion nodded. "Can I go play now?"

Aragorn nodded, and Eldarion darted away from the table. At seven years old, Eldarion did not have much patience for adult conversation. Once his son had left the table, Aragorn turned back to Legolas and Gimli.

"So, you went back and saw the witch?" Gimli asked.

"She is no witch, Gimli. I know this to be true, and yet, because of our conversation, I found myself wondering if she meant to harm me."

Prompted by the curiosity on Legolas' face, Aragorn told them everything that had happened in the dream world. As Aragorn expected, Gimli also thought Lauren's odd behavior and comments indicated ill intentions toward Aragorn, and strongly voiced his opinion. When Aragorn mentioned that her only concern about their contact was that it would change the future, the others fell silent.

"Is that a possibility?" Legolas asked finally. "I have heard you say many times that your foresight shows you only what **may** come to pass. 'The future is not set.' You and Arwen have said those words to me, as have Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel. But what happens when our future is another's distant past? We would not want to risk changing her time. And yet, with this contact, how can we avoid it?"

"We can do only as I promised Lauren," Aragorn said. "We can let nothing we learn from her affect our decisions, and must not try to re-create anything she shows me."

"There is an easy way not to change the future. Just don't go back," Gimli pointed out.

"No," Aragorn said slowly. "While she seems content to pass her time in that world with idle amusements, I have seen something darker in her eyes. She is hiding her fear, her pain, and I cannot leave her alone with it. And I also owe her an apology."

"What do you need to apologize for?" Legolas asked curiously.

Aragorn told them about his reactions to finding out that she had simply been dancing when he thought she was in danger.

"You chastised her for trying to entertain herself?" Legolas asked, laughing lightly. "You do have a history of being rather…cranky when you don't get enough sleep. I do believe an apology is warranted."

Aragorn grimaced slightly and nodded.

Once the meal was finished, they all went on about their day as normal. Aragorn was able to handle all the business of his kingdom without showing signs of weariness, but at the end of the day, he had barely laid down in bed before he was fast asleep.

Aragorn was getting accustomed to the abrupt shifts in scenery, but what he now saw was different than he was expecting. He was standing on a beach, but it was not the same beach. Instead of the endless stretch of fine white sand, this beach was composed of coarser grained brown sand and jagged rocks. There was a strong wind blowing, and the clouds were a threatening gray. The waves were pounding the shore, drowning out all other sounds. Aragorn grew worried. If the surroundings were created from Lauren's mind, this fierce landscape did not bode well for her state of mind. He turned slowly around, looking for Lauren. When he finally spotted her, he frowned.

Lauren was standing out on an outcropping of jagged rocks, with her head down, seemingly watching the waves crash into the rocks beneath her feet. She was close enough to catch the spray of the waves, and her hair and clothes were soaked. She was wearing what she had called a swimsuit, with a skirt that draped to her knees. The wet material clung to her legs even as the wind whipped around her, sending her hair flying around her head.

As Aragorn left the sandy beach, he stepped up onto the jagged rocks upon which she stood. Approaching her slowly, he could hear the music from her radio rising above the sound of the wind and the waves. This song had a harsher sound than most of the music he had heard from her radio. Her voice could be heard singing along, and Aragorn listened closely to the words. As before, she seemed to be singing a song about being lonely. This song talked about walking the streets all alone while the rest of the city slept, and she seemed to be asking for someone to find her to keep her from her loneliness. ("Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day)

Aragorn studied her as he came to a stop beside her. She was tapping her hand against her leg in time to the music, and was staring down at the waves as if hypnotized. Looking down, he realized that she was barefoot. The rocks she was standing on were sharp enough to slice unprotected skin, and Aragorn didn't think she had even noticed that her feet had been injured. With a thought from him, the rocks grew smooth under their feet, but she did not even seem to realize that he was standing next to her, and that worried him all the more.

"Lauren?" he spoke her name gently to get her attention.

She stopped singing and the music grew softer so that it faded into the background sound of the storm, but she gave no other sign that she had heard him. Aragorn's concern grew when she refused to face him. He placed his hand on her shoulder and scowled at how cold her skin was. Why was she not taking better care of herself? After a moment, she slowly turned around to face him. Aragorn had expected her face to be as wet as the rest of her, but the redness of her eyes told him that not all of the moisture coating her face was from the sea spray. He had never seen her look so vulnerable as she did at that moment.

"I didn't think you were coming back," she said softly. She reached up and swiped at the wetness on her face. "With the way you left, I thought I'd made you so mad that you didn't want to come back."

Aragorn's heart dropped at her words. Was he to blame for this? He had never wanted her to think that he would abandon her. "I'm sorry," he began. "I was unable to return sooner."

"Oh, no," she exclaimed. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I'm not blaming you for anything. The only thing I could possibly hold you responsible for is leaving me alone long enough to give me time to think."

"And your thoughts led you here?" Aragorn asked, gesturing to the stormy sea.

She tried to smile, but didn't quite succeed. "Yeah. Sometimes, giving me time to get lost in my head isn't a good thing."

She shivered suddenly, and Aragorn held off any other questions. He conjured up a large towel and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"Perhaps we could find a warmer place to continue this?"

Shrugging, she replied off-handedly. "If you like."

Aragorn looked around and imagined the sunny beach where he had first met Lauren. As their surroundings changed, Aragorn gestured for Lauren to precede him to the chairs. She picked up her now silent radio and wandered over to the chairs before plopping down in one.

Joining her, Aragorn knelt down in front of her. "Your feet were injured. Would you let me look at them?"

She looked startled at that, and lifted her legs to look at the bottoms of her feet. "They're fine," she remarked, showing them to Aragorn. "I told you that any injuries heal very quickly here."

Aragorn shook his head as he sat down in the unoccupied chair. Quickly was a great understatement. He was sure that only minutes ago, her feet had been cut and bleeding. There was no use dwelling on that, though. "Can you tell me what you were thinking as you watched the waves?"

She shook her head abruptly, and her wet hair stuck to her face. She pushed it back off of her face impatiently, and it dried instantly under her hand. "It's not important," she said in response to Aragorn's question. "I was having a pity party for myself. If I had known you were coming back, I wouldn't have gone quite that far. I never let people see me like that. It's a bit embarrassing."

"A pity party?" Aragorn asked in confusion, not recognizing her phrasing.

"Sorry. It just means that I was feeling sorry for myself. I'm sorry you had to see that." She looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes.

Aragorn narrowed his eyes and stared at her. She was obviously troubled, but seemed unwilling to share the thoughts that burdened her mind. "You said that you never let people see you like this. Does this happen often?"

"No," she assured him. "I usually handle my problems much better than this. Most of the time, I'm a relatively optimistic person. I don't like feeling like this, but no one can be happy all the time, right? And I do have extenuating circumstances here. This isn't exactly an everyday situation." Her tone had become rather defensive as she spoke. She truly did not like having anyone see her in such a state, and felt she had to justify her mood.

"I will listen to anything you wish to talk about," Aragorn offered with an understanding expression on his face.

She shook her head. "That's not necessary, but thanks." A slight wave of her hand indicated that she didn't feel it was worth speaking about.

Aragorn gave her a stern look. "That was not a request."

As Lauren stared at him, she realized again that he was truly a king, not just a distant relative. There was an unmistakable air of command about him. She sighed as she realized he would not take no for an answer. Unfortunately, that was a look she had seen all too often on her father's face, and she knew there was no avoiding it.

Sighing again, she drew her legs up into the chair, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her knees. "OK. You said that you're a healer, too, right?" Aragorn nodded and she continued. "Assuming that time is passing the same way in my reality as it is here, it's been about four or five days since the accident. Aragorn, I haven't woken up. I'm sure you know that the longer a person is unconscious or in a coma, the less likely it is that they'll ever wake up. I've heard stories of people waking up after years in a coma, but I'm sure that's the exception rather than the rule. And honestly, I don't even want to contemplate the possibility of spending years here."

"Years?" Aragorn asked in amazement. He had never heard of such a thing. In his time, they could only prolong the life of a person in such a condition for a few weeks at most. It was nearly impossible to give a person who was unable to eat the proper nutrients over an extended period of time.

She nodded, raising her head off of her knees and watching Aragorn's expression as she talked. "Yes," she said. "We have the capability for keeping people alive for a long time, if they meet certain conditions, anyway. The person's body must be capable of keeping the heart beating, and if a person's organs start failing, there may be nothing that can be done. But we have machines that will breathe for a person if they are unable to. Doctors will put in a feeding tube and an IV to make sure that the body receives the proper nutrients if the person is unable to eat. We have had people living for years in what is termed a 'persistent vegetative state'. I wouldn't want that. I signed a paper a while ago that stated my choices if the situation ever came up where I was rendered brain dead and was unable to breathe on my own, and there was absolutely no hope that I would ever wake up again. I gave the doctors my permission to take me off the ventilator and donate any of my organs that someone else could use."

"Donate your organs?" Aragorn asked incredulously.

She smiled at his reaction. "Yes. Doctors can transplant the healthy organs from one person to replace someone else's failed organs. Now, there are many criteria that must be met before this can be done. The people have to have matching blood types, and I really don't know what else has to match, but you can't just do that for two random people. The recipient has to be on anti-rejection drugs that prevent their body from rejecting the new organ. And even with all of that, there is still a chance that the body will reject the new organ. But the way I look at it is this. Once I'm gone, I don't need my organs anymore. And if they can be used to save the life of someone else, I'm glad to do it."

Aragorn shook his head in amazement. This was so far beyond anything he would ever have thought possible. But in explaining this to him, he felt they were beginning to drift away from the topic Aragorn thought they needed to be discussing. "Your fears of not waking up are what led you to create such a dismal scene?"

She blinked at the change of subject. She had preferred to talk about medical advances over her innermost thoughts, actually. But he would apparently not be deterred or distracted. She lowered her head back to her knees. "Partly. It's hard to be cheerful when you might be facing death. It's not that I fear dying, but I just started thinking about all the things I might never get to do. I might never get married and start a family. Then I started wondering if I would ever see my family again; my parents and my brothers."

Her voice was becoming softer, sadder, and Aragorn knew he needed to get her talking about something more cheerful. "Will you tell me about them, about your life?" When she looked questioningly at him, he elaborated. "I have told you much about my life, but I still know very little about yours. I would like to know what your life is like."

She shrugged, uncurling herself and relaxing back into her chair. "I live a pretty normal life, nothing like yours. I get up in the morning, go to work, and go home. I spend time with my friends on the weekends, and visit my family when I can." She stopped speaking, and Aragorn gave her a stern look that indicated he wanted to hear a lot more than that.

"Fine," she said with a slight smile. "What would you like to know?"

"I would like to hear of your family," Aragorn said.

"I suppose I can start with the basics. I actually got pretty lucky with my family. I grew up in a traditional family with both parents and my two brothers. Jeff is my older brother, he's three years older than me, and Ryan, my baby brother, is nineteen. My father is a Colonel in the US army, and we moved around a lot when we were kids. People in the military have to go where they're posted, and they can be posted nearly anywhere in the world. We lived in seven different places when I was growing up. Because we moved so often, it was difficult for us to make friends. It seemed that just when we made friends, it was time to pick up and move again. As a result, my brothers and I grew pretty close. Ryan is quite a bit younger, so Jeff and I kind of helped raise him. Jeff is actually my best friend. I worry about him, a lot." She fell silent and gazed off in the distance for a moment.

"Why do you worry for him?" Aragorn asked.

She looked back to him. "He's a Captain in the army, and he's in a very dangerous area right now. I pray every day that he'll come home safe and sound."

"You are at war?" Aragorn asked. He was surprised and saddened that humanity was still warring with itself even after so many years.

She gave him a sad smile, knowing what he was thinking. "Technically, the war is over, but our people are still fighting insurgents and trying to stabilize the area. We've actually lost more people since the official end of the war than we did during the war." She saw the look on his face. "I know. You would have hoped that in twenty thousand years, we would have stopped making war on each other. I hope for the same thing, but mankind has a short memory. We don't seem to learn from our mistakes. Our history is filled with violence, war and bloodshed, and it just never seems to stop. I just wish it would stop and Jeff could come home. We all miss him."

A smile crossed her face as she thought of something. "He has two small children waiting for him at home. They're beautiful. Daniel is three and Cassie is five. His wife, Gail, is raising them by herself while he's out of the country."

"You are not helping her?" Aragorn asked.

"I would if we were closer," Lauren said. "But we live several hundred miles from each other. Luckily, Jeff and my parents were stationed to the same base, so when Jeff is gone, my parents are able to help her out when she needs it. I'd like to be closer to them, but I had to go where the job was. After moving around so much as a kid, I had thought that I'd settle down in one place and never move again, but it hasn't worked out that way. I move around nearly as much as I did as a child. Though maybe now that I have a steady job, I can stay in one place for more than a few years."

"Why do you move so often?" Aragorn asked. He was finding this glimpse into her life quite fascinating.

"Well, after I left my parents house, I went away to school. I've actually spent the majority of my life in one school or another. I finished one program at one school, then went to a different school for another program. I have a Master's degree, which means that I have chosen a specialty on which to concentrate. It's not the highest a person can go, but it's still quite an accomplishment. For most of my life, I've thought of myself as a student, a scholar. I graduated a couple of years ago and moved out to the East Coast of our country when I was offered a job. It meant leaving my family behind, but I hadn't really lived with them for the majority of a decade, either."

"What do you do that requires so much school?" Aragorn asked.

"This won't mean anything to you, but I'm a computer programmer. I work for our government, helping to create and upgrade systems that aid in our defense. I don't have anything to do with making weapons, but rather in gathering intelligence about possible threats. And that is pretty much all I can tell you. Even if you understood what I was talking about, most of what I do is classified, so I'm not allowed to talk about it with anyone. But I guess this whole doing what we can to protect our country thing runs in the family."

Aragorn smiled, thinking that it had run in the family for a very long time. "What about your father?" he asked. "You said he was in the army as well. Is he not in the same place your brother is?"

"No," she said. "He was injured in a helicopter crash about ten years ago. He's a great tactician and had no desire to leave the service, so he didn't retire, but his injuries prevented him from being able to go back into combat. He's stationed on a base in the States, and I think that's just the way my mother wants it. She always worried about him when he was away. Now she just has us to worry about. Before this, I never really gave her a reason to worry about me, but I bet I'm on the top of her list right now."

"I understand why she would be worrying about you and your older brother, but what of your younger brother? You have not said much about him."

She sighed. "We have a different reason to worry about him. Like I said, he was the baby of the family. As he was growing up, he was constantly being compared to Jeff and me. I was the good student, always making top grades, and Jeff was the star athlete. He never met a sport that he didn't excel at. In high school, he was the most popular student around, and he was genuinely nice to everyone, which is rare in a popular person, believe me. Everyone loves him. Ryan kind of grew up in our shadows. Now, he's good at everything he tries, but he's not the natural athlete that Jeff is, and he didn't want to compete with that, so he didn't try out for sports. He gets good grades, but they never quite compared to mine, and I think he just wasn't trying. He's extremely intelligent, but he never puts in the effort to excel at school. He went away to college last year, and he's kind of focusing more on partying than studying."

"Partying?" Aragorn asked. He was able to follow most of her words, but there were a few that he didn't quite understand.

"He goes out almost every night with his friends. They drink probably too much alcohol and generally just try to have a good time. He doesn't take much time to actually study for tests or do his homework. It's amazing to me that he hasn't flunked out yet." Noticing the question on his face, she explained. "There is a standard grading system in place in our schools. These grades are used to determine the ranking of students. The lowest grade is represented by the letter F, so if someone is failing to meet the minimum standard set for the class, they are said to have flunked the class. Mom worries about him, but Dad just says that Ryan is still trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up."

Aragorn thought that nineteen was 'grown up', but maybe things had changed so that someone of that age was not considered an adult. "What about you?" he asked. "Did you always want to be what you became?"

She laughed. "Not really. When I was younger, the question was not what did I want to be, but what _didn't_ I want to be. Every time I found a new interest, I thought that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have wanted to be a doctor, a veterinarian, an archaeologist, an astronomer and a ballet dancer, though I was six when I had that idea. I think there were a few others throughout the years, like a psychologist because I'm fascinated with what goes on in people's minds, what drives them to do what they do." She went on to explain what each of the professions that she had mentioned involved.

Aragorn thought that her interest in trying to figure out how ancient cultures had lived must have contributed to her ability to remember what he had told her about their history and his life. When he found out that she loved to look at and study the stars and beyond, his eyes lit up. "The elves also have a love of the night sky," he said. "I remember Lord Elrond teaching me about the stars when I was very young and the many times that Legolas and I sat near a campfire simply looking at the stars. This interest of yours seems to be showing your elven heritage. If this is a profession, why did you not pursue it?"

"The field is really tough to break into," she said. "You need a higher degree than I have to be taken seriously, and you must publish numerous papers to survive among the community. The field is just very competitive, and I wanted a field where there were more job opportunities. I did study astronomy in college, so I could tell you a lot about the life cycle of stars, the galaxies beyond our own, the planets in our solar system, and the ones that we know orbit distant stars. We have made much progress in our understanding of the universe since your time, but there is still a lot we don't understand."

Aragorn stared at her in bemusement. He did not understand much of what she was talking about.

She saw the confusion on his face. "How about we have a stargazing session? You can tell me what you know of the stars, and I can tell you what I know?"

Nodding, Aragorn agreed. "I would like to know what humanity has discovered about our… universe?" He was unsure of the word she had used.

"That's the right word. The scale of things we'll be talking about is this. We live on a planet, in a solar system made up of nine planets orbiting a star, the sun. The sun is the most massive object in this solar system, but it is only average size compared to other stars. The stars in the sky can be smaller, or many times more massive than the sun. A very large collection of stars make up a galaxy, ours is called the Milky Way Galaxy. There are a great many galaxies in the universe."

Noticing the glazed look in his eyes, she stopped. "Is this going to be too overwhelming?" she asked sympathetically. "It was really only in the last few centuries that astronomers discovered that the Earth moved around the Sun and not the other way around. There was a great deal of controversy at the time. If this is going to challenge your view of the world too much, we can drop the subject."

Aragorn just stared at her for a moment. "No," he said slowly. "But I need time to think about what you have told me so far. I wish Legolas were here for you to talk to. He wants to know everything there is to know about nature, the world around him, and what lies beyond the edges of the world. He would be greatly interested in all you could tell him."

"Aragorn?"

Aragorn and Lauren spun around as a fair voice intruded on their discussion.

"Legolas?" Aragorn asked in amazement.


	6. Meeting an Elf

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

Chapter Six - Meeting an Elf 

Looking over to where Legolas had suddenly appeared in the midst of the dream world, Aragorn stood up and walked to the elf's side. "What are you doing here?"

"I do not know," he replied with some confusion. "I assume this is the dream world you have told me about?"

"Yes," Aragorn answered. "I was just telling Lauren that I wished you were here to talk to her, that you would love to hear all that she can tell you. Did I summon you here?"

"You must have," Legolas said as he looked around in interest. "You were correct. This beach is beautiful." A wistful smile crossed his face as he looked at the sea.

Aragorn realized that it might have been a mistake to bring Legolas here. He had apparently succeeded in re-awakening his sea longing. He looked around for Lauren, to have something to distract Legolas with. Lauren was still sitting in the chair where he had left her, gazing at Legolas with a slack-jawed expression.

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked in amusement. He knew that she had never seen an elf, and he was rather enjoying her reaction. "Would you like to come over here and meet Legolas?"

She closed her mouth abruptly and walked slowly over to them as if in a daze, never taking her eyes off of Legolas' face. She stopped about an arm's length away from them, and her eyes roamed over Legolas, seemingly studying every detail.

"Lauren?" Aragorn said again. "Are you not going to say anything?"

"Oh…my…God," she breathed softly. "He's absolutely gorgeous! I don't think I've ever seen anything so…perfect in my life." She walked slowly around him, studying him from every angle. She stopped back in front of him, and the awe in her face made Aragorn suddenly have to stifle a chuckle. Legolas was looking increasingly uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

"Lauren, this is my friend, Legolas. Legolas, this is Lauren, my granddaughter."

"Suliad. Greetings. It is a pleasure to meet you," Legolas said. "I have heard much about you from Aragorn." He glanced sideways toward Aragorn when she did not respond. He had certainly not expected this reaction, and he was unsure what to do now.

She just continued to stare at him, her eyes wide, until Aragorn reached over and poked her in the arm. Snapping out of her stupor, she glared at Aragorn, rubbing her arm. "That wasn't necessary."

"You seemed to be in a bit of a trance," Aragorn said with a grin. "I could think of nothing else to do to break you from it." He was truly enjoying watching her reaction, and Legolas' discomfort.

"This is your best friend?" she asked in amazement. "How do you ever get anything done without getting distracted? Or maybe that works a bit differently for you, also being male. But honestly, I don't think I could string together two coherent thoughts when he's around. Is there any way to bring him to my time from yours? Or better yet, he's immortal right? How about if he's still around in twenty thousand years or so, you have him look me up?" Her face was alight with her enthusiasm and that mischievous glint in her eyes.

Aragorn could not help it; he burst out laughing, and even Legolas was looking amused, if a bit embarrassed. "He is right there," Aragorn finally said. "I do not believe it is polite to talk about him as if he were not here."

"No he's not," Lauren insisted. "It's not possible that he's here."

"Why not?" Aragorn asked in confusion. Lauren's reaction was rather confusing to him. Legolas was now watching them both with amusement.

"You said the only reason that you and I could talk is that we're blood related. There was nothing in anything you've said to indicate that I'm any relation to Legolas. Therefore, he can't really be here, and you're just having fun at my expense, knowing how I'd react to seeing him for the first time." Lauren crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at Aragorn. "Not that I can blame you. I'm sure my reaction was quite humorous."

"I would not attempt to have fun at your expense, Lauren. The rest of your argument is logical, but for one thing. Legolas is an elf, and as such, can control his dreams to an extent unheard of for humans. He likely heard my summons and responded, finding his way here to join us." He glanced sideways toward Legolas to see if he agreed with that. Legolas just shrugged, not really sure how he had ended up here.

Lauren's face blanched. "You mean he's really here? That isn't just an image of him?" She turned away and walked slowly back to the platform, slouching down in a chair and pulling the towel over her head.

Aragorn and Legolas exchanged confused glances before Aragorn walked over to join Lauren, gesturing for Legolas to stay where he was. "Lauren?" Aragorn asked tentatively as he sat down beside her. "Are you all right?"

"Is it possible for a person to die from embarrassment?" her muffled voice came through the cloth of the towel.

"No, I do not believe so," Aragorn chuckled, suddenly understanding why she had reacted as she had.

"Too bad," she said softly. She took the towel from her head and looked at Aragorn. "Are you sure he's really here? So far, you're the only other person to find this dream world. And you have talked about Legolas before without him appearing. So is it possible that he's just an image, and because you know him so well, his reactions seem real?" She was practically pleading with him to tell her that Legolas was not really there.

"It is possible," Aragorn allowed. "I know Legolas as well as anyone, so I can accurately predict how he would react in certain situations. There is a small chance that he is simply an image, but it is also a very real possibility that he is here. Until we know for sure, however, I believe we should treat him as if he truly is here."

Lauren nodded miserably. "Fine. But I'm so embarrassed at how I reacted. I did tell you that I have a weakness for blue-eyed blondes, didn't I? He looks like my fondest dream, and I don't know if I can face him again." She rubbed her hands over her face. "OK, I can do this. I think I'm ready to try this again." Dropping the towel from her lap, she stood up, looking down at her clothes. In moments, she was wearing a long flowing dress that fell to mid-calf.

Noticing the look of surprise on Aragorn's face, she explained. "You had a problem with the swimsuit at first, and I didn't want to make him any more uncomfortable than I already have. So, I thought something just a little more traditional was called for."

Aragorn nodded and gestured back toward where they had left Legolas. "Are you ready?"

"Not yet," she said. "Can you show me an elven gesture of greeting or respect or something? I somehow doubt they shake hands in greeting. I want to try to make up for my horrible first impression." She shook her head in embarrassment as she wondered what Legolas must think of her.

Aragorn smiled and showed her the most common gesture of greeting among the Mirkwood elves.

"Thank you," she said before taking a deep breath. "OK, let's do this."

Aragorn was amused at how nervous she was about facing Legolas again. He held his arm out to her to provide a source of support.

She latched on to his arm with a very firm grip in her nervousness and he led her back over to Legolas.

"Is everything well, mellon-nín?" Legolas asked as they approached him. Looking them over, he noticed that Lauren was wearing different clothing than she had been a moment before, and he remembered that Aragorn had told them how easy it was to change their surroundings and other elements of this dream world. As he studied her, he noticed that Lauren's knuckles were white where she clung to Aragorn's arm. Moving his gaze to her face, he noticed that her expression hovered somewhere between nervousness and outright terror. Surely he was not that terrifying, was he?

"Yes, Legolas. All is well," Aragorn assured him. He patted Lauren's hand reassuringly, then met Legolas' eyes and nodded, with a small smile on his face to let him know that things were fine.

Lauren let go of Aragorn's arm and bowed her head, placing her hand over her heart and then sweeping it out to the side. "Greetings, Prince Legolas. I apologize for my earlier behavior. Please forgive my inappropriate comments."

Legolas smiled at her, easily hearing the embarrassment in her voice. That was the cause for her nervousness, then. "Think nothing of it. You are certainly not the first to react unexpectedly to seeing an elf for the first time." He did have to admit to himself that her reaction was quite unique, though. None had ever ogled him so openly before. Perhaps that was a difference between their cultures.

She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. Seeing no condemnation there, she began to relax. "Thank you for being so understanding. I've never seen an elf before, and nothing Aragorn told me prepared me for this. My brain seemed to have temporarily disconnected from my mouth. I certainly meant no disrespect, nor did I wish to make you uncomfortable."

"Enough," Aragorn broke in, rolling his eyes. "You have been forgiven, Lauren. Stop apologizing."

She shot him a sheepish grin. "OK, fine. I'll let it go."

"Thank you," Aragorn said. He noticed the confused look on Legolas' face. "Her manner of speaking is not like we are accustomed to, but is not usually too difficult to follow." He looked back and forth between Lauren and Legolas. Lauren seemed to be doing her best not to stare at Legolas. Having Legolas here seemed to be creating a feeling of awkwardness. She finally seemed to give up the battle and studied Legolas intently.

"Is there something you would like to ask?" Legolas asked her, trying to put her more at ease. Also, if he could get her to stop staring, he would be more comfortable.

"Yes, actually," she replied. "Aragorn said that elves are immortal. I know this may be rude, but I have to ask this. How old are you?" She tilted her head slightly to the side as she studied him, apparently trying to find some clues to his age.

Legolas smiled at her. "That is a question that the race of men always seems to ask. I am still considered young by the standards of my people. I am not yet three thousand." His casual tone made it clear that he did not find anything unusual about that.

Her mouth dropped open and she just stared at him for a moment. After she found her voice again, she pressed the question. "Well, how far from three thousand are you? A few centuries, a few years, two thousand years?" She gestured with her hand, her palm up in inquiry.

"Two thousand years?" Legolas asked in confusion, brows knitting together. "Would I not then have said that I was not yet a thousand?" Her question did not quite make sense to him.

She shrugged. "I don't know. For all I know, three thousand is some kind of milestone marking adulthood or something, and you were saying you hadn't reached that mark."

Legolas could not fault her reasoning. "I am less than fifty years away from turning three thousand."

"Wow," she said. "And that's considered young?" The incredulous expression on her face made it clear that she certainly did not consider him young.

Laughing, Legolas answered her. "Yes, many elves are much older than that. Aragorn's brothers are a little older than I am, and their father is over six thousand years old. And Lord Elrond is far from being one of the oldest elves. Lord Glorfindel has been alive since before the fall of Gondolin. He is much older than Elrond."

"But he was not alive the whole time," Aragorn added, raising a finger to make his point. "Do not forget, he died during the fall of Gondolin and spent many years in the halls of Mandos."

"How could I possibly forget, considering the many times I have heard the tale?" Legolas said, rolling his eyes. That was a favored tale at Imladris, and he had heard it more times than he could keep track of. "He was not dead for long, though, comparatively, so I still count him among one of the older elves." Aragorn had to grant him that point.

Lauren was watching them in utter confusion. "He came back from the dead?" This sounded like a story she would love to hear. Raking her memory of the tales Aragorn had told her, she did remember him mentioning a Glorfindel who had died, and also a Glorfindel that he had known as he grew up, but she had never thought they were the same elf. How did one come back from the dead?

"Yes," Aragorn explained. "It is a long story, but the short version is that the Valar sent him back from the Halls of Mandos to help protect Elrond, his family, and Imladris. His job was not yet finished." Aragorn knew that it would take some time to try to explain the story more fully, and he did not want to spend the time on that story just yet.

"Oh," she nodded as if that made sense, but they knew by the crease in her forehead that to her, it did not. She dropped that line of discussion and returned to her original line of questioning. "I know you must hear this all the time, but you don't look any older than me." She scrutinized Legolas' face, looking for lines or other signs that he was several millenia old. The only sign that she could see of his age was in his eyes. They seemed to hold much more experience and wisdom than she would have expected.

"And how old are you?" Aragorn asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

She gave him a dark look. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that it's not polite to ask a lady that question?" She tossed her head as if he had offended her, but the twinkle in her eyes made it clear that she had taken no offense.

"You broached the topic and invited the question," Aragorn said, smiling and crossing his arms as he stared at her.

She frowned, thinking that over. "Yeah, I guess I did. OK, I'm between twenty-five and thirty." She followed Legolas' example and left them to guess at what her exact age was. For some reason, she didn't want to admit that she would be thirty on her next birthday. It was something that was actually bothering her a little bit. "And that's as much of an answer as you'll get, so don't push it. And while we're on the topic, how old are you?"

"Almost one hundred twenty five," Aragorn said, raising an eyebrow and smiling slightly as he stared at her. He had a feeling that she would not believe him.

Her mouth dropped open again in what was becoming a rather bad habit. "You're human. You can't possibly be that old and look _that_ good." She now started scrutinizing Aragorn, looking for signs of his age. He did have more lines on his face than Legolas, but she would have sworn that Aragorn was only in his forties, at the latest.

Legolas and Aragorn both started laughing. Aragorn explained once more about being descended from elves and the longer life that came along with their heritage.

She shook her head in disbelief. "This is just too strange." Tilting her head, she studied Aragorn as intently as she had been studying Legolas. "Maybe that's why our family never seems to show their true age. We don't live much longer than other people, but no one ever believes we're as old as we are. This could explain it." She looked back at Legolas with a curious expression on her face. "Living for that long must be amazing. What is it like?"

Legolas did not know how to answer that question. She would have to be more specific. "What would you like to know?"

"What kind of advances in technology have you or even some of the older elves seen? What kinds of knowledge have you been able to accumulate, in medicine, art, history, astronomy, or understanding of the laws of nature? How many skilled artists have you known? Have you noticed any major architectural changes over the years, or just improvements in building techniques? What kinds of changes have you seen in the land and the animal life around you? You've probably been around long enough to see some major changes in the growth of forests. Have you seen any changes in the sky? I realize that on cosmological scales, a few thousand years is the blink of an eye, but have you observed any explosions or sudden brightening of stars in the sky? If you've observed a supernova, that would be awesome." Her words left her in a rush as her mind jumped from one topic to the next. She had more questions than she even knew how to articulate.

Legolas looked at Aragorn for help. He did not know where to start trying to answer her questions. He had a helpless, somewhat trapped expression on his face as he shrugged and tried to determine how he could answer even one of her questions.

Aragorn thought he could best help Legolas by getting Lauren to talk about something she found more interesting than Legolas. And he knew only one thing to try.

"Lauren has spent a great deal of time studying the stars," Aragorn said. "And it seems that humanity has made many discoveries in the last few centuries. When she was telling me about those discoveries, I found myself wishing you were here to hear it. It was as we were discussing these topics that you arrived." Aragorn smiled to himself as both Legolas and Lauren's eyes lit up.

Legolas turned to Lauren in excitement. "I would truly enjoy hearing about these discoveries. Elves have always loved the stars and the night sky. If you have learned things about them, I may have as many questions for you as you have for me."

"And I would love to tell you about them," Lauren replied, her eyes sparkling. "In my opinion, astronomy is the most interesting science there is." She paused for a moment in thought. "But where in the world would I start? The solar system, stars, supernovas, constellations, galaxies? There is so much that has been discovered in the past few centuries, and even in the past few decades. I honestly don't know what to talk about first."

Aragorn smiled as he watched the two of them interacting. This was what he had hoped to achieve. When Lauren was discussing one of her interests, all awkwardness vanished from her mannerisms and any other topic flew from her mind. He stood back and watched them talk.

"How about we do this," Lauren said. "You tell me what you know about the stars, movement of the heavenly bodies, and anything else you can think of on this topic, and we'll go from there." She was already trying to think of all the topics they had to cover.

"Very well," Legolas said, nodding slightly.

"Would you like to sit down?" Lauren asked, gesturing back toward the chairs. They had been standing for some time now, and with the hot sun beating down on them, Lauren thought they could all use a rest in a shady area.

Legolas simply inclined his head and gestured for her to lead the way. As she turned away to walk over to the platform, Legolas looked over to Aragorn and raised an eyebrow. Aragorn joined Legolas and they began to slowly follow Lauren. "She is quite different than the maidens in our time," Legolas commented lightly, keeping his voice low enough so she would not overhear.

Aragorn laughed. "That is more true than you know. She has no qualms about speaking of whatever is on her mind. I have met few women as bold in her speech as she is."

Legolas chuckled. "That I have seen for myself. No others have called me 'gorgeous' to my face at our first meeting." Actually, none had ever dared to call him gorgeous to his face at all, much less as early in their acquaintance as he and Lauren.

"She did say that under the assumption that you are not actually here," Aragorn pointed out. A grin spread over his face as he thought of something to tease Legolas about. "And before her admiration swells your head even larger, I should tell you that she said much the same to me at our first meeting."

Legolas frowned. "She called you gorgeous as well?" Legolas had always thought Aragorn rather scruffy, especially in his Ranger persona as he now was. Of course, there had never been any shortage of women who seemed to find him attractive, though. But Legolas did not think that even those women would have applied to word gorgeous to Aragorn.

"I believe her words were 'gorgeous ancient warrior'," Aragorn said. He had the great satisfaction of seeing Legolas' face fall.

"Stop teasing him, Aragorn," Lauren's voice broke into their conversation. They had not realized that they had reached the platform where she was waiting for them. "I'll admit it. You're both gorgeous. Of course, finding out that you were my great-whatever grandfather kind of put an end to any attraction I felt. But I'll readily admit that you have that dark-haired, brooding, ruggedly handsome thing going for you. Legolas on the other hand, has a radiance and grace to him that I've never seen in a human. And I've already told you that I have a thing for blue-eyed blondes. That preference goes back to the time I was about six, I think. I had a bit of a crush on my next door neighbor. He was seven."

Aragorn and Legolas both blushed at her honest appraisal, then had to laugh when she told them about her neighbor. She certainly did know how to keep them both remarkably off balance.

Aragorn shook his head in confusion. "You seem much more comfortable around Legolas than you did mere moments ago. How did you overcome your embarrassment so quickly?"

Laughing, Lauren conjured up a third chair and sat down, gesturing for the two of them to take the other chairs. "It started with my curiosity. In case you hadn't figured this out yet, I have an insatiable curiosity about…well, everything, I guess." As she spoke, she also conjured up a table with three glasses of lemonade on ice. Reaching out, she took a glass and took a long drink, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid going down. There really was nothing better on a hot day like this.

"Like someone else I know," Aragorn muttered, glancing at Legolas. Following Lauren's lead, he also reached out and took a glass of lemonade, then gestured for Legolas to take the remaining glass. Legolas took it somewhat hesitantly and took a cautious sip. His eyes widened as he tasted the bite of lemon, then he took another sip. Deciding that it was actually refreshing and quite tasty, he sat back in his chair with his glass in hand and just watched Lauren and Aragorn interact.

Lauren ignored Aragorn's comment and continued. "Then I heard you teasing each other, just like my friends and I do. You did tell me that you wanted me to treat you like I do my other friends, right?" At Aragorn's nod, she continued. "If two of my friends had been carrying on like that, I would have jumped right into the fray. I meant what I said, don't get me wrong, but I just can't be uncomfortable around you two when you act like that." She shook her head as she thought of what she might have said with some of her friends. Aragorn and Legolas were lucky she had kept her comments so mild.

"Then I am glad that you overheard us," Legolas said. "I would not have you feel uncomfortable around me." He took another drink of his lemonade.

"Good," Lauren said. "But I'll have to apologize in advance. If you catch me staring at you, please just ignore me." She laughed and changed the subject when Legolas just gave her a bemused look. He really did not seem to know how to react to her. "So, you two were going to tell me what you know about astronomy?" She conjured up a pad of paper and a pencil to take notes.

Legolas nodded in relief as the conversation moved back to a more comfortable topic. He started telling her about the creation of Arda, and how the sun and the moon had been created as vessels to hold the last golden fruit and silver flower from the trees of Valinor and were placed as lamps in the heavens.

Lauren looked up at that point, her forehead crinkled in concern. "Do you two still believe that?"

Legolas looked at her in surprise. "Of course, why would we not?' He did not quite like the way she had phrased that.

Biting her lip, Lauren debated about whether or not to continue with this. "Will it bother you too much if I tell you something that completely contradicts everything you believe? This knowledge caused much controversy when it was first discovered, and the knowledge was suppressed and discounted for a long time, until people were able to handle it a bit better. If this will cause problems for you, we can drop the whole subject." She thought back to the many years of house arrest that Galileo had been subjected to when he had tried to make his discoveries public knowledge.

Aragorn and Legolas exchanged glances. After a moment, Legolas spoke up. "We treasure truth. If what you tell us is true, we will accept it." He was more hesitant than his voice showed, but he did truly want to know what Lauren might tell them.

Aragorn wondered what, exactly she could tell him that contradicted what they had been told. The story of the Valar and the trees of Valinor were true, but perhaps that knowledge had been lost in the intervening years. It would be quite interesting to hear what Lauren thought about the creation of the world and the sun and moon.

Lauren nodded in relief. "Good, let's get back to it then." Legolas and Aragorn started telling her what they knew of the stars and the morning or evening star, Eärendil. Lauren asked a few questions and took copious notes on what they were telling her.

Legolas glanced over and was surprised at what he saw on the paper. He could not understand a single mark that she had made. He stopped what he was saying, and looked at Lauren. "What are you writing? I cannot read that at all."

She gave him a wry grin. "Is that a comment on my penmanship, or are you trying to tell me that you don't recognize the language I'm writing in?" She tilted the pad of paper toward them to help them see her writing better.

Aragorn and Legolas were now both looking at the paper. "I do not recognize the words," Aragorn said. "What language is that? The lettering is vaguely similar to both Rohirric and Westron, but I can not read what you have written."

"It's English," Lauren said. "It's the same language I speak."

Aragorn shook his head. "I have never heard of that language, but I understand your words when you speak." Now that he thought about it, it was unlikely that they spoke the same language with so many years between them. How, then were they understanding each other?

Lauren just shrugged easily. "If you recognize the lettering, I can assume that English has evolved from the languages you use. I'm writing in cursive, a script form of the lettering system. Maybe if it were printed, it would look more familiar. As for understanding each other, this is a dream, and anything is possible. I'm just grateful that we do understand each other." She looked back over the notes she had made. "Oh, I have got so much to teach you two. We'll have to start with a stargazing session. I'll bring a telescope, you bring your curiosity."

"What is a telescope?" Legolas asked. There were so many of her words that he did not know or understand, but could understand from the context. There was nothing in her words to indicate what a telescope was, though.

Lauren grinned. "Something I think you'll love."

Aragorn was about to ask a question, but as he looked down, he saw that his body was beginning to fade.

"Lauren."

She looked up and saw that he was becoming transparent. "Don't worry about it," she said, waving a hand. "We can do the stargazing thing next time."

Aragorn struggled to stay in this world for just a moment longer, and reached out to Lauren, placing his hands on her shoulders and ignoring the startled look on Legolas' face. "Before I leave, you must promise me that you will not give into despair while I am gone. You have much to live for, and you cannot give up hope that you will awaken and return to your life."

"OK," she said softly. She could see the concern in his eyes and sought to ease his worries about her. "You have my promise. I won't give up hope. You're right. If Jeff is fighting to make our world safer and come home to us intact, the least I can do is fight to hold on to my life. My family would expect no less from me. Besides, I have an astronomy lesson to prepare, don't I?" A grin spread across her face as she spoke the last line.

Aragorn nodded in relief. As he relaxed, he lost his hold on the dream world and faded away.

Lauren turned to look for Legolas, but found that he had disappeared as well. "Huh," she remarked. "Either he was never truly here, or Aragorn was his connection to me, and when Aragorn woke up, he had to leave too." She thought about that for a moment before shrugging. "Nothing I can do about it right now, anyway. It sounds like I should get busy." Turning the radio back on and cranking up the volume, she tapped her foot in time to the music and began making a list of all the topics she wanted to cover and any notes that she wanted to remember when they came back. If felt nice to have something to concentrate on.

-----

When Aragorn opened his eyes, he found Arwen and Gimli staring at him in concern. "What is wrong?" he asked, pushing himself into a seated position. He looked back and forth between Arwen sitting on the edge of the bed and Gimli standing nearby.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Arwen said. "I could not wake you. Gimli had gone to fetch Legolas for breakfast, and was unable to wake him as well. He came here hoping that we could help him to wake Legolas, only to find you in the same state. Gimli was beginning to come up with battle strategies to somehow hunt Lauren down and force her to break the spell she put on the both of you." Arwen's voice held mild amusement at the thought, but Aragorn could hear her concern underlying the humor.

Aragorn placed his hand over hers in reassurance, and glanced over at Gimli with an amused expression on his face. "And tell me, Master Dwarf, just what great plan have you contrived to find someone separated from you by thousands of years?"

Gimli harrumphed. "Well, Master Human, I hadn't quite figured that out yet." He held up a finger to emphasize his next point. "But I was working on it."

"I do not doubt it," Aragorn remarked, shaking his head. If there were a way to do such a thing, Gimli would have tried it. He would do anything it took to save a friend.

"Why were you so difficult to wake?" Arwen asked in concern. They had not run into this problem before.

"I could not leave her before I had extracted a promise that she would not give up hope." Aragorn' eyes darkened as he remembered how he had found Lauren standing on the rocks at the edge of a storm-tossed sea.

"I think this is a story that we need to hear," Arwen said. "But there is someone else who needs to join us. Gimli, if Aragorn is awake, I believe Legolas will be also. Please bring him here." She nodded toward the door.

Gimli nodded and left the room to go retrieve Legolas.

Arwen and Aragorn quickly got up and dressed. By the time Legolas and Gimli arrived, they had arranged for their breakfast to be delivered to the King and Queen's chambers, and were seated at the table in the sitting room adjacent to the bedroom.

When Legolas entered the room, Aragorn knew by looking at his face that he had indeed met Lauren last night. His first words merely confirmed it. "Your granddaughter is quite…interesting, Aragorn."

Aragorn gave him a small grin. "That is one word for it."

"So, you met the witch?" Gimli asked gruffly.

Legolas gave Gimli a stern look. "She is not a witch, Gimli. I sensed no malice from her. She my be different from anyone I have ever met, but I knew from the moment I saw her that she is related to Aragorn and Arwen; the resemblance is unmistakable."

Legolas and Gimli took seats at the table, and Gimli began pressing them for the full story. Arwen had something else she wanted to ask first, though. "Why is she in danger of giving up hope?"

"She has not awakened since the accident," Aragorn said. "It has been several days now, and she has begun to fear that she will never wake again."

"That is a possibility, is it not?" Legolas asked seriously, hating the idea that such a lively person could succumb to death. "You told us that you did not know how she had survived the accident. If her injuries were that severe, she may not survive."

Aragorn shook his head. "It is a possibility, yes, but the healers of her world can do amazing things. You missed the portion of our conversation where she told me about the medical advances of her time." He proceeded to tell them all that had happened that night.

Once Aragorn explained Lauren's behavior at first meeting Legolas, the elf had to endure several minutes of teasing, mostly from Gimli.

"Do you plan to go back?" Arwen asked Legolas.

"She is planning to tell us both about the discoveries her people have made concerning the stars. That is something I would not wish to miss," Legolas said, a far-away look in his eyes as he contemplated what it was that she could tell them.

Gimli grumbled for a few minutes about both of them falling under the witch's spell, but he was secretly comforted that Legolas sensed no malice from the woman. He would never admit it, but he trusted the elf's instincts completely.

The food arrived just then and Gimli's stomach grumbled loudly, breaking into the conversation. "What?" Gimli growled self-consciously. "This is much later than I normally eat. Can you tell me that you are not hungry?"

The others had to admit that they were also hungry, and the conversation changed to other topics as they all helped themselves to the food in front of them.


	7. Astronomy 101

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting. RL has gotten rather hectic lately. I do most of my reading/writing/editing and such over the weekends, but my weekends look pretty booked from now till the end of summer, so I can't guarantee a set posting schedule for awhile. 

Chapter Seven - Astronomy 101

When Aragorn fell asleep that evening, he found himself in an open meadow, with a gently sloping hill in front of him. As with previous times, to find Lauren, all he had to do was follow the sounds of her music. Looking up the hill toward the sound, he saw Lauren sitting at the top with an unusual device standing nearby. He walked easily up the hill and sat down next to her on the blanket she had spread out on the ground. She gestured to the vista in front of them. "I've always loved watching the sunset." The sky was a glorious mixture of oranges, reds and pinks in one of the most beautiful sunsets Aragorn had ever seen.

Aragorn nodded in agreement after taking a long appreciative glance at the view, then gestured toward her radio. A song much like those he had heard before was emanating from the speakers, and she was swaying slightly back and forth to the beat. "Nearly every time I see you, you are listening to your music."

"I couldn't imagine living without music," she commented. "No matter what mood I'm in, I can find music to complement it or to contrast it. It has the power to calm me, excite me, or lift my spirits when I'm feeling down. Even when I'm not listening to it, I almost always have a song in my head." She leaned over and turned off the radio, knowing that Aragorn did not share her musical tastes.

"The love of music is a very elven trait," Aragorn commented. "Though I do not believe that most elves would consider what you listen to, to be music." The expression on his face very clearly showed his dislike of her music.

"I happen to like it," she retorted easily. "But speaking of elves, where is Legolas? I thought he had planned to join us tonight." She looked around them and peeked behind Aragorn as if she thought that he might be hiding behind his friend.

"So you know that he was truly here?" Aragorn asked her, chuckling at the thought that Legolas would simply be hiding behind him.

"I figured it out," Lauren said, turning her attention back to Aragorn. "Even if you know him really well, I don't think his reactions would have been quite so genuine if he weren't really here. I certainly hope I didn't scare him away."

Aragorn raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest. Legolas was a rather fearless warrior in battle. The thought that he would be scared of Lauren was rather amusing. "Scare him away?"

Lauren chuckled. "I don't mean that he's afraid of me, but you have to admit that he was rather uncomfortable around me. I don't know why, but he doesn't seem to know what to make of me." The look on her face was one of pure innocence.

Aragorn just gave her an incredulous look, and Lauren rolled her eyes. "O.K. He probably wouldn't have been so uncomfortable if I hadn't been staring at him like a starving man at a feast."

Aragorn started laughing, and Lauren joined him. "For some reason, I seem to find myself laughing rather frequently around you," he said as the laughter died down.

"I'm hoping that means you share my odd sense of humor and aren't just laughing because you don't know how to react to me." Her lips quirked in a wry grin as she looked at him.

"I think it is a little of both," Aragorn admitted, running a hand through his hair to push back a recalcitrant lock of hair that insisted on falling in his face.

"Fair enough," she said, waving a hand through the air. "But if you bring Legolas back, I promise I'll be good…or at least I'll try my hardest." Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she tried to hold an innocent expression on her face.

Aragorn shook his head a little. He did not quite trust the look on her face. "The reason he is not here has nothing to do with you. I wanted to make sure that he would not find himself on the beach again."

"Does he have something against the beach?" Lauren asked, wrinkling her forehead in confusion.

"No," Aragorn said. "But the sea calls to him in a way you and I can never understand. The elves are leaving Middle-earth to sail to Valinor. Legolas has felt the call to join them. He has sworn not to leave while I still walk the land, but that does not keep him from feeling the pull to leave. I could see the pain in his eyes yesterday when he saw the sea. Real or not, it stirred feelings in him that he would rather not have right now."

"Wow," she said, a look of regret crossing her face. "I had no idea. Don't worry. I'll make sure that when I'm expecting you two, I won't be on a beach." Her expression changed to one of anticipation. "Can you call him now?"

Aragorn smiled at her enthusiasm. He could not help but think that she was just a little enamored of Legolas. Aragorn concentrated on thinking of Legolas. For a moment, nothing happened.

Lauren noticed. "Yesterday you said that you wished Legolas were here. Maybe you have to say it out loud."

Shrugging, Aragorn did as she suggested. Not even a moment passed before Legolas appeared in front of them. Apparently, it did take a vocal prompt to call Legolas.

"Suliad," Lauren said, remembering his greeting from the previous night.

Legolas automatically returned her greeting, then nodded to Aragorn. "Where are we? This is not the same place we were last night." He moved over to sit down on the blanket beside Aragorn.

"No, it's not," Lauren said. "This is a better place for stargazing. I prefer to be up high, like the top of this hill, so the trees are on the horizon line and not blocking the view."

Legolas looked around and nodded his approval, stopping for a long moment to gaze at the remnants of the sunset. "This will be a good place to observe the stars." He noticed the two objects sitting nearby. "What are those?"

Lauren grinned. "The larger item is a telescope. We'll get to that later. The smaller one is a radio. It plays music. Would you like to hear?"

Aragorn looked askance at Lauren. "I do not believe that would be a good idea. I have already told you that elves would not appreciate what you consider music."

"Come on, Aragorn," she protested. "It's not all that bad."

Aragorn glanced over to Legolas. "You may want to prepare yourself. But I suppose you have heard worse…in battle."

Lauren glared at Aragorn. "My music is not that bad," she muttered to herself. She reached over and turned on the radio. A soft mellow song with a Celtic sound by Loreena MeKennitt drifted out of the radio.

Legolas looked at Aragorn in surprise. "That is much like what we would hear at home, Aragorn. Why did you feel it necessary to warn me about it?"

Aragorn looked back and forth between Legolas and Lauren. "I have never heard anything like that come from her radio. This is not her normal style of music," he protested.

Legolas grinned slightly. "Are you sure you were not exaggerating when you compared her music to the sounds of battle?"

Glaring at Legolas, Aragorn defended himself. "While I will admit that this selection is more to my liking, this is not what she normally chooses. You would not like some of her choices, my friend. Trust me on that."

"I do not know, Aragorn. I find it difficult to believe that someone who enjoys this music could also enjoy listening to what you describe." Legolas was enjoying seeing Aragorn thrown by Lauren's musical choices and could not resist teasing him about it.

Aragorn looked over to Lauren. "Unless you are doing this to make me appear foolish, you may want to say something about your music choice."

She grinned innocently at them. "Would I do something like that?" Before either of them could respond to her question, she went on. "I do happen to enjoy a variety of different musical styles. I just thought the both of you would prefer this style. Instead of accusing me of playing a joke on you or something, you should be thanking me." She set the radio to play a selection from Loreena McKennitt, Sarah McLaughlin, and Norah Jones and made sure the volume was kept low. She did not want the sounds to disturb either Legolas or Aragorn, and she only wanted the music to be a background sound as she told them about the stars.

Legolas smiled at the disgruntled look on Aragorn's face and decided to change the subject before Aragorn could say anything more about Lauren's music. "You said that you were going to describe the new discoveries your people have made?"

She paused and looked at both men for a moment. "I had time to think things over a bit after you left. I'm not sure this is really a good idea. You two are going to have to swear to me that what I tell you will go no further. I can't risk changing history by having this knowledge leak out thousands of years before it is discovered."

Aragorn looked at her in concern. "We have been telling Arwen and Gimli all that occurs in this place. Can we not tell them?"

Lauren sighed. "I'd rather you didn't, but as long as they're the only ones who know, I can accept that. Some of the things I'll tell you could be discovered by your people if you have someone who is able to invent a telescope or studies the stars intensely and has a great understanding of math. But some of the more recent discoveries could not possibly have been made without very advanced telescopes, which you don't have. I can't over-emphasize the importance of this. The race of man cannot have this information before it was supposed to have been discovered. As long as you understand that, we'll be fine."

"We understand, and you have our word that we will tell no one besides Arwen and Gimli," Aragorn said. Legolas nodded his agreement.

Nodding in return, Lauren accepted their vow. "Well then, you may as well make yourselves comfortable, and we can get started." She thought up a soft, pillowed backrest, and leaned back comfortably. "Before we start looking at the stars and talking about the recent discoveries, there are a few basic concepts we have to get straight first. Gravity is a good place to start, I think."

"Gravity?" Legolas asked, testing the unfamiliar word.

"Yes, it's what causes things to fall to earth. There is a story that a mathematician named Newton came up with the concept when an apple fell from a tree, but I think it was a bit more complicated than that. When you shoot an arrow over a great distance, you have to aim above the target, right?" She used her hands to mime shooting an arrow upwards, above a target.

Legolas and Aragorn looked at her in surprise. "You are an archer?" Aragorn asked.

"No, I've never held a bow and arrow in my life, but I understand the physical concepts behind it. Now, as much as I love astronomy, physics was never my favorite subject, and I don't think I could explain it well, so I'm just going to gloss over a few things. But with an understanding of gravity and a few physics equations, you can predict the path of an arrow. All projectiles follow an arc, a curved path as gravity pulls the object down to earth. So, for shooting over distances, you must compensate for this downward pull, correct?"

They both nodded, having experienced this for themselves.

"Good, this downward pull is called gravity. It is an attractive force between any two bodies with mass. Now, the more massive object will exert a greater force than the less massive object. That is why an apple will fall toward the ground rather than toward the tree it came from. Both the tree and the ground exert a gravitational force on the apple, but the earth is so much more massive, that the attractive force of the tree doesn't seem to even exist."

Aragorn frowned. He was not entirely sure about this concept, never having felt this attractive force to anything but the earth, but he didn't see how that had anything to do with the stars. He said so.

Lauren smiled. "Because it is this same force that controls the movement of the planets and the stars. This force extends far beyond the boundaries of our one world. And that brings us to the next major concept. This is a big one. The earth is not the center of the universe. In our solar system, the sun is the central point, and the earth and all the planets revolve around it."

They stared at her. Aragorn had heard her say this once before, but he still had trouble believing it.

"How can that be?" Legolas asked. "The earth does not move. We would feel it."

"Actually, that couldn't be further from the truth," Lauren said softly. She knew she was treading on dangerous ground, and didn't want to push this too far. "The earth is revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis. Gravity is the reason we don't feel the motion. The Earth is tilted on its axis, and this causes the change in the seasons. One revolution around the sun is one year. As the earth rotates on its axis, the sun and the stars seem to cross the sky. When the earth is rotated toward the sun, we have daylight. When the earth is rotated away from the sun, we have night."

She decided a visual aid would help get her point across better. She thought of a small three-dimensional model of the solar system, and one appeared in front of her, between her and the men. She pointed to the yellow ball in the middle of the model. "This is the sun." As she thought it, the model planets started moving, rotating on their individual axes. She pointed to the third planet from the sun with its moon revolving around it. "This is the earth and the moon, which is the only body that actually orbits the earth."

Aragorn and Legolas watched the motion of the bodies in the model. Legolas pointed to the other objects. "What are these?"

"Those would be the other planets. Earth is only one of nine planets in our solar system."

"So many?" Aragorn wondered. "You said they are like Earth?"

"Insofar that they are other worlds orbiting the sun, yes. None of them harbor life like Earth does." She pointed to each one in turn, starting with the closest one to the sun. "This is Mercury. It is a small, rocky world less than half the size of Earth. It is much too close to the sun to allow life to form. The normal temperature is about three times as hot as boiling water. There also isn't much of an atmosphere, which is what holds in gasses that allow life to develop."

She moved on to the next one, thinking this could be a little tricky. "This is Venus, the world that I believe you call Eärendil." Their gazes both shot to her face at that. Lauren tilted her head slightly as she looked at Aragorn. " Eärendil was related to you, right?"

Aragorn nodded. "Yes, he is Lord Elrond's father. He is half-elven, and long ago sailed to Valinor to ask for the Valar's help. He was not allowed to return to Middle-earth, but the Valar let him sail the skies in his ship with the bright light of a Silmaril at the bow. He descended from the skies with the great birds of heaven to help battle the dragons as the elves, Valar and men fought against Morgoth at the end of the first age. Eärendil slew the greatest of the dragons and cast him from the sky. I believe that you are a little confused. This planet that you call Venus can not possibly be Eärendil and his ship. "

"Eärendil is not simply a legend, as you apparently believe," Legolas said. "He is real, and his story is true. He was seen by many when he came to join the battle against Morgoth."

Lauren's brow wrinkled in thought. "OK, then, yes, I'm confused. I'm a person of science, and what I know about the planets is fact. There is no arguing that Venus is a planet. We have pictures of it. It has been there for as long as Earth has existed. It's not like something changed between then and now." She waved her hands to indicate her confusion.

"But something did change," Legolas said slowly. "After the kings of Númenor assailed Valinor, Ilúvatar removed Valinor from the world and placed it in the realm of hidden things. The world was greatly diminished from that point on."

Lauren followed Legolas' train of thought. "Perhaps it was not only Valinor that was hidden. If the world became more…ordinary, for lack of a better word, then a ship sailing the skies was probably also taken away. Has anyone seen him since that time?"

Aragorn and Legolas shook their heads. "Not in person," Aragorn added.

"Maybe they were pulled into another dimension, or a parallel reality," Lauren mused to herself. "I suppose that's possible. As much as a person sailing the vacuum of space in a wooden ship is possible." She looked back at them and didn't offer to explain the concepts of parallel realities. That would be a bit too much. "OK. I accept that at one time, the bright light in the sky referred to as the morning or evening star was Eärendil and his ship. Then he was hidden with Valinor. Now, that 'star' is Venus. Would you like to hear about it?"

They nodded, thinking that from her tone of voice, she didn't truly believe that Eärendil had ever sailed the skies as they knew to be true. But the explanation was enough to satisfy them, and they wanted to hear more about what the skies were like in her day and age.

"OK then," she said as she started her description. "Venus is the closest in size to Earth, and for a very long time, people thought that it might be a twin to Earth. A thick layer of clouds covers Venus, so no one knew what the surface might be like. It wasn't until a few decades ago, when humans landed machines on the surface that we had any idea what lay beneath the clouds."

Their gazes once again locked on her face. "You have put machines on other worlds?" Legolas asked in amazement.

"Yes," she answered with a grin. "I told you that we've made a lot of discoveries in the last few decades. This is a very exciting time for astronomy. We have landed spacecraft on several of the worlds and moons in our solar system. The distances are far too vast to reach any other systems, but we're learning a lot more about our own neighborhood. I'll cover some more of those discoveries later, if that's all right?" They nodded slightly, and Lauren was a little concerned that she was telling them too much, too quickly. But they seemed willing to continue listening, so she went back to telling them about Venus.

"What they discovered amazed a lot of people. The surface temperature was higher than that of Mercury, though it was further away from the sun. The clouds apparently trap the heat of the sun, so the temperature is over four times that of boiling water. Wait a minute, I have an idea."

She gestured toward the suddenly darkened sky, and an image of Venus appeared there. They stared upward in amazement. They were truly looking at another world, as it was seen from space, and not from Earth. This was something they would never have expected to see.

"This is one of the pictures taken from a spacecraft orbiting Venus. You can see the thick clouds that I was talking about." She showed them several of the images of the planet taken from spacecraft that had landed on the surface.

"You already know that Earth is the next planet in the list, and I think you'll enjoy these images." She showed them images of Earth taken from space, and heard them both gasp beside her. "Pretty amazing, isn't it?" She showed them a few more, then showed them one taken from the surface of the moon. "We've actually had people walk on the moon," she told them. "The first people to walk on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, several years before I was born. As he stepped on to the surface for the first time, Neil Armstrong said words that have made their way into the collective human memory. 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' I've seen images of that moment. In fact, how about we watch that?" She leaned back and played the images of the moonwalk across the sky.

"That is a human?" Legolas asked as one of the men came into view. "Why does he look so odd, and why is he moving like that?"

"Those are spacesuits that protect them and allow them to breathe," Lauren explained. "There is no breathable atmosphere on the moon, so in order to breathe, they have to carry their oxygen in tanks. And since the moon is much less massive than the Earth, it doesn't have as strong of a gravitational pull. It's not easy to walk normally on the moon, so they do that kind of hopping motion."

Aragorn was silent as they watched the video, and Legolas turned to look at him. "What are you thinking?" he asked quietly.

"Mankind has achieved things we could never have dreamed of," Aragorn remarked.

"It's all a little overwhelming isn't it?" Lauren asked sympathetically. "By the time I was born, we already knew a lot about the solar system and the stars around us. I learned some of this in school as a child. It was just something I accepted and I guess I took it for granted. I never considered what it would be like to suddenly be told this without having the background that I had. Do you want me to stop?"

"No," Legolas said emphatically. "Lauren, you cannot tell us only this much and then stop. You said there were nine planets, and you have only told us of two others."

"Aragorn?" Lauren asked. She wanted to keep going, but would stop if it was making either of them too uncomfortable.

"Yes, please continue," he said. It was overwhelming, but like Legolas, he wanted to learn more.

"Very well," she said. "The next planet in the sequence is Mars. It's about half the size of Earth. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on with it right now. For many years, people have thought there might be alien life on Mars. Through telescopes, people have seen what they believed to be canals made by intelligent life, and features that appeared as if they had been made by liquid water. As we have learned more about Mars, it became evident that there is no intelligent alien life there, but there may once have been liquid water, so there is a possibility that life could have formed. The life that I'm talking about is not like the plant or animal life you may be thinking. It would be so small that you can't actually see it without a microscope, a device that magnifies the image. We have two rovers, machines named Sprit and Opportunity which are currently roaming the surface of the planet. They have sent back numerous images to Earth of the surface of Mars. They have been examining the make up of the soil and rocks that they find. I don't know exactly what discoveries they've made, but I can say that the exploration of this planet is making history."

She looked at the confused expressions on their faces. "Oops, I lost you a while back on that one, didn't I? Sorry. This is just such an exciting time for discoveries being made on this planet. The short version is that we have a chance of finding life on another planet for the first time. How about we move on to some of the images?" She projected some of the satellite images of Mars on the sky.

"What are all those circles?" Legolas asked as one of the images displayed.

"They're impact craters," Lauren explained. "Objects called asteroids and meteoroids fly around in the space between the planets, and they occasionally strike the planets. Those circular shapes are the result of an impact." She went on to show them other images of Mars and pointed out the features that indicated past liquid water on the surface.

Once she finished with Mars, she told them of the gas giant planets in the system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Aragorn and Legolas were amazed to find out how large these planets were. Aragorn's eyes widened in surprise when Lauren told them that the 'Great Red Spot' visible in Jupiter's atmosphere was a storm larger than Earth that had lasted for more than four hundred years. She showed them numerous images of the planets, the stripes of Jupiter's atmosphere, the rings of Saturn, and the blue colors of Uranus and Neptune. They asked many questions, and Lauren did her best to answer them and not confuse them. Once she had covered the most well known of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons, she told them about Pluto, and its moon Charon.

When she talked about Saturn, she had to tell them about Cassini, the satellite in orbit of Saturn and the Huygen's probe that it had very recently dropped to the surface of one of it's moons, Titan. She made sure not to go into detail about any of the discoveries, just mentioned that people were still studying the information that they were receiving from these instruments.

"Now, how about we finally get around to looking at the stars?" She thought about the night sky, and the last image that she had displayed vanished, to be replaced by a vista of the stars.

Legolas studied the stars for a moment. "The stars are wrong."

"What?" she asked. "Oh, you mean they're winter constellations and we're obviously in the summer? Well I love the winter constellations, but I hate the cold, so we're getting the best of both worlds."

"No, it is more than that," Legolas said. "This is not how the stars should look."

"Why don't you show me how they should look?" Lauren asked him.

Legolas looked back and forth between Aragorn and Lauren. "How do I do that?"

"Just concentrate on what you want to show us. The sky will change to mirror your thoughts." Lauren coached Legolas on how to alter their environment.

Legolas did as she asked, and the stars changed.

"Wow," she said in amazement as the sky filled with more stars than she had ever seen with the naked eye. "I don't think I've ever seen this many stars by simply looking up at the sky."

"Have some of the stars disappeared?" Aragorn asked in confusion.

"No," she explained. "They're still there, but we just can't see them. Light pollution is the bane of all ground based observing. We have so many cities in our world that the light given off by these cities tends to block out the fainter stars. You have to get away from any cities to truly be able to see the stars, and that's not always an easy thing to do." She studied the stars around her and began to see a few familiar constellations. Legolas was right, they weren't as she had expected them to be.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I feel like such an idiot. Of course the stars would appear different. There is a phenomenon called precession that affects where the stars seem to be. I told you about the axis that the Earth revolves around?" They nodded. "Well, that axis has a little bit of a wobble. It moves around like a child's top." She used her hand to demonstrate. "It takes 26,000 years for a full circle to be completed, and we apparently are at different places in that cycle."

Legolas nodded in understanding. "The change in the stars has been noticed by the elves before, especially the older ones, but we have never known how to explain the movement."

Lauren looked at him. "Well, I hope my explanation helped. Do you mind if I move things around a bit to how I see the sky? It will help with what I wanted to show you. I never really studied the Southern Hemisphere constellations, and I have a feeling that's what some of those are. I don't know enough about them to say anything."

"Do what you need to do," Legolas said.

"OK," she said as the sky changed back to the previous configuration. "You should still be able to recognize some of the constellations," she said. "They just might not be where you expect them to be." She pointed to Polaris. "That is called Polaris, the North Star. If you ever need to find the direction of north in my time, just find that star." She looked over to Legolas. "Why don't you see if you recognize anything and let me know."

Legolas pointed to a grouping of stars that seemed to form a large 'W'. That is Wilwarin, the butterfly."

Lauren smiled. "I know it as Cassiopeia, the Queen." She outlined the stars and continued. "That is supposed to look like a queen sitting on her throne."

Aragorn then gestured to another grouping of stars. "That is Menelmacar, the Swordsman of the Sky. He has long been my favorite constellation, ever since Elrond taught me of him."

Lauren favored him with a bright smile. "Me too. Orion the Hunter has always been my favorite constellation. Is this how you see him?" She used her hand to outline the stars that represented his legs, his shoulders, the three stars that made up his belt and the stars coming down from the belt for his sword, and the bow that he held in one hand.

"Yes," Aragorn said. "It is nice to see that some things do not change."

"I guess it's just easy to see a hunter in that grouping of stars. But my mom likes it for another reason."

"What is that reason?" Legolas asked.

Lauren started laughing. "We went to a planetarium when I was young. That's a place where people show others the stars in a domed building and teach them about the sky. The names of the constellations that we use were decided a long time ago. One of the people at the planetarium noted that if we had been naming the constellations today, we might have seen something much different. They suggested that we might see a very famous singer in that constellation by the name of Elvis. The legs and shoulders of course remained the same, but the bow he holds became an upraised arm holding a microphone, which is a device that amplifies the voice to be heard by a large number of people. The sword became the cord of the microphone, hanging down past his body. Now, my mom loved Elvis. He died some time ago, but she has always loved Orion after hearing him described as Elvis. Personally, I think I'll stick with thinking of him as an archer, a hunter, a protector. I used to look up at the sky and think he was there to protect me from harm. Of course, I was much younger when I thought that, but I've always had a soft spot for him since then."

She pointed to the red star at his shoulder. "That red star is called Betelgeuse. Literally translated, I think that means 'the armpit of the giant'. Not the prettiest of names, but you can see where they got the name. Betelgeuse is a red giant star. It's about a thousand times as large as our sun is. If you were to put Betelgeuse where the sun is, it would extend to about Jupiter's orbit, and the inner four planets would be consumed."

They went on in this manner for some time, sharing the names of the constellations and stars, along with any stories behind them or facts known about them. She told them that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky was actually a binary star, two stars orbiting each other, though only one was bright enough to be seen. The second star in the system was a white dwarf, a small dead star.

"A dwarf star? Gimli will be pleased to know that some of the stars have been named after his people," Aragorn commented.

"If we tell him that it is a small, dead star, he will not be quite so honored," Legolas pointed out wryly.

"We do not have to tell him that part," Aragorn replied with a grin.

Once they had discussed most of the constellations that they all recognized, Lauren decided it was time to do something different. "I think it is time to switch gears and go look through the telescope," she said, standing up and moving over to the object they had almost forgotten about. Standing up, they stood near her and watched as she quickly set up the machine with easy, practiced moves. "Once the telescope is aligned, the computer knows where all the other objects in the sky should be," she explained. "I will warn you that what you will see in this telescope won't look like the pretty images we looked at earlier. Those pictures were taken by larger telescopes with better light gathering power and with longer exposures. And some of those images were taken from space, much closer to the target. But it will still be a closer look at some of these objects than you'd ever see with the naked eye."

She set the telescope to point at Venus. "There's Venus," she said, stepping back and gesturing for Legolas to look through the eyepiece.

He looked through the telescope, then looked back at her. "It looks like the crescent moon."

"Yes, with a telescope, you can see the phases of Venus, much like the phases of the moon. It's quite a bit smaller, though. Venus is much further away than the moon."

Aragorn took his turn next. He seemed a bit amazed that he was getting a closer look at the 'star' he had spent most of his life searching for whenever he looked into the sky. Lauren then turned the telescope toward Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. They were able to see the rings of Saturn and a few stripes in Jupiter's atmosphere, along with the four largest moons stretched out in a line around Jupiter. Aragorn remarked that they did look much different than the images she had shown them, and the colors of the atmospheres could not be seen.

Lauren had to remind them that the objects that recorded the images acted differently than the human eye. She grinned to herself at the looks of amazement and awe in their faces as they looked at the planets of the solar system for the first time. Once they had seen all of the planets that were visible through the small telescope, she showed them the double star Alberio. The bright blue color of one of the stars was clear in the eyepiece. She showed them the open star cluster of the Pleiades, the Orion and Crab nebulas, and the Andromeda galaxy. They spent more than an hour just pointing the telescope at anything they could find and exclaiming at what they could see. But the most amazing thing for them was when she turned the telescope on the full moon. They were able to see details of the dark regions called the marias, or the 'seas', the numerous craters and the mountains. It was a long time before they would turn away from the telescope, and they did so reluctantly only when Lauren promised to show them better images of the objects they had seen through the telescope.

As they settled back onto the blanket, Lauren realized what was missing from her observing session. "We need some hot chocolate," she declared. "While I realize the temperature is warmer than usual, I always have a thermos of hot chocolate on hand for my observing sessions. Would you like some as well?"

Aragorn and Legolas looked at each other, then back to her. "And what would that be?" Aragorn asked.

"A hot drink usually made with a combination of milk and powdered chocolate," she explained.

"What is chocolate?" Legolas asked.

She stared at them, aghast. "You don't know what chocolate is? You poor deprived people! Chocolate is manna from heaven, ambrosia from the gods, edible bliss."

The men had to laugh at her enthusiasm. "Well, I would not pass up a chance to taste something that could inspire that reaction," Aragorn said, still chuckling.

She thought for a minute. "OK, we'll have hot chocolate, but we have to have something else with it. Do you both like fruit and nuts?"

"Yes," Legolas said, confused. "Are we going to be eating those with the drink you have proposed?"

"Yes," she said. "But they won't be quite as you expect."

A tray appeared in their midst. Aragorn and Legolas leaned forward and studied it. There was a pitcher sitting on it with three cups, a collection of cookies with dark spots in them, a bowl of small dark, round objects, and a pile of strawberries covered in a dark smooth substance. They looked back at her and waited for her explanation.

"So I got a little carried away," she shrugged. "There are strawberries dipped in chocolate, chocolate covered nuts, and chocolate chip cookies." She picked up the insulated pitcher and carefully poured three cups of the hot chocolate. "Be careful, it's hot." Bringing her cup to her lips, she closed her eyes and inhaled the steam. After blowing gently across the surface of the drink, she took a tentative sip. Finding the temperature to be just as she liked it, she took a deeper drink and sighed in pleasure. "That really hits the spot." She opened her eyes to see their reactions as they took their first sip.

After the first tentative sip, their eyes widened. "That is very sweet," Aragorn commented. He licked his lips and took another drink. "I have never tasted anything quite like this."

Legolas did not comment, but took a deeper drink of his own. Lauren smirked at the rapturous look on his face. It appeared that another chocoholic was born. "I agree. This is delicious," he finally said, before reaching for a chocolate covered strawberry. "I did not believe it possible, but this is even better," he said after the first taste.

For the next few minutes, they tried everything on the tray, finding that they loved everything offered. Lauren had to re-fill the tray before they were satisfied enough to sit back and go back to looking at the sky. With a cup of hot chocolate in hand, Lauren leaned back against the pillows she had conjured earlier.

"The next set of images are of objects called nebulas." She pointed back up toward the sky, and the men reclined to better see the image. They gazed in awe at the wispy, brilliantly colored clouds that appeared above them. The complex patterns and different shapes of each nebula caught the eye and made them lean closer as if for a better look. The bright colors appeared as gems against the black sky behind them.

She pulled up images of the great dark pillars in the Eagle Nebula standing out as dark shapes against a blue-green background, and the great expanse of glowing gases in the Orion Nebula, a fantast mixture of pinks, oranges, browns and greens. There were circular planetary nebulas like the Helix and Ring Nebulas, a central circle of blue surrounded by circles of orange and red. She showed them pictures of the pastel colors and intricate patterns in the Cat's Eye nebula, as well as objects with names like the Rosette, Egg and Hourglass nebulas with their vivid colors and complex shapes. Each image was as breathtaking as the previous one, and she told them what she knew of each one as she showed it upon the sky. Their reactions were all that she could have hoped for. They were lost in the images and the beauty that existed far beyond the confines of their world.

"All of the things that I showed you are fairly local things," she told them. "They are within our own galaxy. Now I told Aragorn a little about this, but I don't think I mentioned this to you, Legolas. We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way galaxy. This galaxy is very large."

She took a deep breath and began to try to explain just how large the galaxy was. "A light year is a unit of measurement specified as the distance that light can travel in one year. One light year is approximately 6 trillion miles, so that would be about 2 trillion leagues. By the way, that would be a two with twelve zeros following it. The nearest star is over four light years away, and our galaxy is one hundred and twenty thousand light years across." She grinned at the dumbfounded look on their faces. "I know, the distances are mind-boggling. I don't even truly have the faintest idea how far that is, but I wanted you to have some idea of the scale of the objects we'll be looking at. Our galaxy is just one of many, and most of them have billions of stars. But the best way to do this is just to show you some of them."

An image of a beautiful, majestic spiral galaxy appeared over their heads, and both man and elf gasped at the sight. "That's the Pinwheel galaxy," she told them. "It's a spiral galaxy. Can you see the separate arms?" They nodded. She went on to show them pictures of the Andromeda, Sombrero, and several unnamed galaxies, all with distinct bright spiral arms arcing gracefully away from a central mass.

When she brought up a picture of the Mice galaxies, Legolas asked why the shape was not like that of the others. The image she had just showed them did not have a tight spiral structure, but looked as if some of the spirals had been thrown out away from the central part of the galaxy, as if they were coming unwound.

"There are many instances of galaxy interactions," Lauren explained. "When two galaxies get close to each other, their gravity affects each other and like you can see in this image, there is often a 'tidal tail'. The galaxies get distorted by the close interaction." She showed them pictures of more interacting galaxies, the Whirlpool, Tadpole and the Antennae galaxies with their spiral cores being trailed by a long, bright tail and bright blue star clusters.

Then she showed them what she thought of as the ultimate image. "This is a picture of a very small section of sky called the 'Hubble Ultra Deep Field'." They gasped anew as they saw in that small section of sky thousands of galaxies, showing up as only small smudges of light, some showing the same spiral structure she had shown them earlier. "I love this image," she commented softly. "If none of those other images did it, this one truly lets us see the magnitude, the magnificence of God or Ilúvatar's creation. It has been estimated that there are about one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. In this image alone, there are about ten thousand."

"Does that not make you feel incredibly small?" Aragorn asked as he stared deeply into the image.

"In a way," Lauren allowed. "But it just makes me hungrier for knowledge, really. I want to know what's out there. In all of that, I don't think we could possibly be the only living creatures, do you? There are an unknown number of planets in other systems out there. In the last ten years, since the first extra-solar planet was discovered, scientists have detected over one hundred and fifty of them. The ones we have discovered so far are all gas giant planets, like Jupiter. We don't expect to find life on those, but as the technology improves, we may be able to see planets of similar size to Earth. We're a very curious people, you see. We want to know what is out there, if we're alone in our neighborhood, or if there is intelligent alien life somewhere. In my opinion, there has to be intelligent alien life out there in that vast universe, we just haven't been able to find it yet."

"Alien life?" Aragorn asked. "If you find it, will you travel to meet it?"

"Not in my lifetime," Lauren exclaimed. "And not for a very long time to come. We don't have the technology to do anything like that right now. If you'll remember, the furthest we've had manned missions is to the moon. At that, we only had a handful of people visit the moon, and none for years. Right now, the only reason we have people going into space is because of the International Space Station."

"What is that?" Legolas asked his now very familiar question.

"It's an orbiting station that is manned at the moment by two astronauts. It usually has a complement of three people, but after the Columbia accident, the shuttles haven't been in use."

When her statement met two very blank looks, she hurried to explain. "Sorry. The space shuttles are the vehicles used by my country to put people in space and bring them back home. In February of 2003, a couple of years ago, as they were returning, the shuttle Columbia broke up in the atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed. It was a horrible accident."

"Seven men died and you are still sending men into space?" Aragorn asked, aghast.

"The exploration of space is a risky business," Lauren explained. "Those aboard Columbia were not the first astronauts to die. It is always a tragedy that is mourned by the nation and the world at large. But in determining what caused the accident, we can fix the problem and make the next flight a safer one. I truly admire people who can go into space knowing what risks they may be facing. And by the way, not all those on the shuttle were men. Two women were also aboard."

"Women?" Aragorn asked in amazement.

Lauren's eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "While there are still a few jobs that are not allowed for women, we have the ability to work alongside men at whatever we choose to do. I knew as I grew up that I could be whatever I wanted to be. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No," Aragorn said. "I respect women and know them to be very capable. But in my time, no man would knowingly send a woman into a dangerous situation."

"Being an astronaut is a great honor, and something that people have to go through much training to achieve. If a woman is able to complete the training and has skills necessary for the job, why should she be prevented from going into space?" she asked seriously.

Aragorn inclined his head, granting her the point. "She should not," he said, knowing that Lauren would not accept any other response.

"You have people in space right now?" Legolas asked in fascination.

"At least two," Lauren explained. "And it shouldn't be much longer before the shuttles are operating as normal again. They've had one successful flight so far, but still have a few problems to work out. Once all the problems are fixed, we'll have a few more people going back and forth. Maybe then they'll be able to service Hubble." The last line was spoken nearly under her breath.

"What was that?" Aragorn asked.

She sighed as she looked over at Aragorn. "You know all those fantastic pictures I was showing you? Most of them were taken by one amazing piece of technology. The Hubble Space Telescope has been in orbit since 1990, about fifteen years now. It's made some amazing discoveries in that time. Besides taking some of the most gorgeous pictures anyone has ever seen, it has helped us figure out the answers to many questions. We now know the age of the universe, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, the existence of dark energy, how galaxies evolve, that super-massive black holes are in the centers of most galaxies and it has helped us find a lot of those extra-solar planets I told you about earlier. But it needs servicing. There are several parts that need replaced. If Hubble doesn't get serviced soon, the telescope could stop functioning sometime in the next three to five years. Before the shuttle accident there was a mission planned to go up and replace the aging parts and replace a couple of the cameras as well. Once the shuttles were grounded, the mission was put on hold. That's fine, we want the shuttles to be safe for our astronauts. The telescope is great, but the safety of the astronauts has to come first. But now that it looks like the shuttles are going to fly again, they need to put a servicing mission back on the docket. There has been a lot of debate over the last couple of years as to whether or not that would happen; but in my humble opinion, it would be a tragedy to simply let the telescope die without some attempt being made to keep it functioning for years to come. Who knows what we'll discover next?"

As she got more and more worked up about the telescope, her concentration slipped, and the radio suddenly started blaring her more normal style of music. At first, she didn't even notice, merely incorporated the beat of the music into the pattern of hand gestures she was making to emphasize her point. It wasn't until she looked over at Legolas and saw his hands clamped firmly over his ears that she realized what had happened. With that realization, the music just as suddenly cut off completely.

"Sorry," she apologized sheepishly. "When I get going on certain topics, I really get going. Are you OK?"

Legolas slowly removed his hands from his ears and looked at her. "I will be fine, but I begin to see what Aragorn meant about your musical tastes."

"I told you so," Aragorn muttered in satisfaction.

Lauren laughed and shook her head slightly. "Fine, your point has been made. But I still hold that my music is not all that bad. It's just different than what you're used to."

"That much is true," Aragorn allowed. "We have never heard anything like your music."

"So what is your music like?" Lauren asked in curiosity. "I can hardly say whether it is better than mine if I've never heard it, now can I?"

Aragorn and Legolas looked at each other. "Why don't you sing for us, Legolas?" Aragorn asked. "Show Lauren what elven music is like."

"You could join me," Legolas said.

"And have you complain that I do not do the song justice? I think not." Aragorn crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Legolas with a raised eyebrow.

Legolas smiled at Aragorn. While it was true that elven music did not sound quite the same coming from a human, Aragorn well knew that Legolas' complaints had been made in jest. But, having made them, he could not now insist that Aragorn join him. Legolas nodded in acknowledgment to Aragorn and watched as Aragorn and Lauren made themselves comfortable. After a moment, he decided to start with a traditional elven melody, A Elbereth Gilthoniel. He thought it an appropriate song, as it was about the stars in the heavens.

Lauren reclined back against her pillows and closed her eyes, letting the sound of Legolas' voice wash over her. It truly was like nothing she had ever heard before. The elven song was beautiful, ethereal and otherworldly as it drifted on the air. A tear slipped out from beneath her closed lids, but she paid it no mind and let herself float away into the music.

Aragorn noticed the rapt expression on her face and nudged Legolas. Legolas looked at her and smiled before closing his own eyes and losing himself to the music. As the song ended, he shifted smoothly to another, singing songs of the stars, nature, the heavens, and the Valar. He sang for a long time, his voice the only sound to be heard. The last song he sang was of the fading of the elves as their time on Middle-earth ended. As the last note drifted away, Legolas opened his eyes and looked back to Aragorn.

Aragorn had a relaxed smile on his face. Listening to Legolas sing always had a calming effect on him, no matter what situation they found themselves in. Aragorn gestured to Lauren. She lay still with her eyes closed. "I think you sang her to sleep," Aragorn commented.

"Hardly." Her voice was soft and faraway. "I don't know how anyone could sleep through that." She sat up slowly and shook her head as if rousing herself from a trance. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I can see why you might consider my music to be harsh. I thank you Legolas. You have given me a gift that I will never forget. That music will stay with me for the rest of my life."

They simply stared at her for a moment. That was not her normal behavior at all.

Legolas nodded in acceptance of her praise. Humans were often amazed at the beauty of elven music when they first heard it.

She noticed Aragorn staring and smiled self-consciously. "If I believed in magic, I think I'd accuse you of putting a spell on me, Legolas. After this, I may just start believing in magic again. I used to, when I was a child." Her voice was wistful as she spoke the last line.

Aragorn couldn't help but laugh. "Gimli was worried that you had put a spell on me, and you claim Legolas has bewitched you. I seem to be surrounded by those with magical gifts."

"Gimli thought I had put a spell on you?" Lauren asked, confused. "Why? I certainly don't have any magical abilities."

"I would not say that," Legolas said, gesturing to the sky where she had shown the images of the universe. "You managed to open our eyes to an entire universe that we did not know existed. We should be thanking you."

Lauren shook her head, and waved a hand dismissively. A smile lit her face, though as she replied. "Fine. You're welcome. I'm glad to share what knowledge I have. Do you have any other questions that I might be able to answer?"

"How old is the universe?" Legolas asked, thinking back to a question that he had wondered about earlier when she was talking about the telescope named Hubble, but had not had the chance to ask.

"The universe is 13.7 billion years old. Much older than even the most ancient elf, I'm sure." She looked at Aragorn and noticed that he was becoming transparent. "Is it morning already?"

Aragorn looked down and noticed the same thing. "We shall see you again tonight." He glanced over at the tray and quickly grabbed a strawberry, shoving it into his mouth before he lost the ability to interact with the dream world. "Thank you for that, as well," he said, grinning widely.

Legolas tried to imitate his last minute grab, but found that he was already too insubstantial. As Aragorn woke up, Legolas faded as well. The disappointment on his face caused Lauren to start giggling. "Don't worry, I'll supply more tomorrow," she said as they faded away completely.

Lauren sighed at finding herself alone again. She lay back down and turned on the radio. Instead of her normal music, Legolas' voice once more filled the night. "Now I just have to figure out how to entertain them tomorrow," she muttered. "I've tapped out my astronomy knowledge. So what else would interest them?" Closing her eyes in thought, she absently picked up a chocolate chip cookie and listened to the music of the elves as a smile spread across her face.

A/N: Since this story was written in 2005, a few new discoveries have been made in astronomy. I did not change them in the story, since the character is living in 2005, but I felt I needed to include an update of that information. In the winter of 2005, Pluto was discovered to have two smaller moons, which were named Nix and Hydra in the spring of 2006. The bright star Sirius in the constellation Canis Major has been discovered to be a triple star system rather than a double star system. The smallest extra-solar planet found to date is about five times larger than Earth and orbits a red dwarf star. And the most exciting of all, the Space Shuttle Discovery has just had a successful launch on July 4th, 2006. This is the second successful launch since the Colombia accident in 2003, and one of the astronauts on the shuttle will stay on the International Space Station, brining the crew complement up to three. Assuming that the shuttles start normal flight operations again, a Hubble servicing mission is scheduled and is a priority for NASA.


	8. Trees

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story.

Chapter Eight - Trees 

Aragorn appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a park of some sort. There were trees and wooded areas surrounding him, but he stood in an open grassy area. People of all ages were going about their business, paying no attention to him. Children played games and chased each other under the watchful eyes of their parents. Others walked the grounds with dogs at the end of some form of restraint. Still others sat at tables or on benches, talking or just enjoying the spring atmosphere. Glancing around him, Aragorn saw no sign of Lauren. He knew she had to be near, but she was nowhere to be seen at the moment. He summoned Legolas, wishing to have someone to help him figure out what was going on.

Legolas looked around them as soon as he appeared, taking in their surroundings. "Where are we, and where is Lauren?"

"I do not know the answers to either of those questions," Aragorn responded, turning around to look behind them for Lauren.

The sounds of barking turned their attention to a large, brown shape bounding in their direction. They had time to do no more than take a step backwards before the dog was right in front of them. It brushed its head up against Legolas, and leaned into his body. The dog was heavy, and Legolas braced himself as he looked down at the dog in confusion. A woman came running up to them and grabbed the leather strap that trailed behind the dog.

"I am so sorry," she apologized to Legolas. "He got away from me. Just pulled the leash out of my hand. I don't know what got into him." She looked down at the dog. "Bad dog. No treat for you tonight."

"It is well," Legolas said. "There was no harm done. He startled us, but he did not mean to cause any trouble."

"He's too friendly for his own good sometimes," the woman said. "Again, I'm sorry for his behavior. We will leave you alone now." She walked away, tugging at the leash. The dog looked back at Aragorn and Legolas, but turned and followed his master.

Aragorn chuckled as he watched the woman leave. "Even in dreams, animals recognize elves, though the woman did not seem to notice anything unusual about us."

Legolas was about to reply when he spotted a familiar figure. He turned to look, and instantly grabbed for his bow and an arrow. The weapons had not been there moments before, but appeared at his thought.

Aragorn spun around to follow Legolas' gaze, wondering what could have alarmed him in this peaceful setting. His eyes found Lauren running toward them. She did not seem to be giving any attention to her surroundings, and her eyes were not on them, so she was not running to meet them. There was no danger that he could see, though, no reason for her to be running. "Peace, Legolas," Aragorn said, holding out a hand in a gesture meant to calm the elf.

"Lauren is running, Aragorn, she may be in danger." Legolas was tense as he scanned the wooded area behind Lauren for a sign of any enemies.

"Nay," Aragorn remarked. "She is not being pursued. There is no fear on her face. I know not why she is running, but she is in no danger." At his words, Legolas lowered his bow and loosened his grip on the arrow, though the weapons did not disappear.

As she approached them, Aragorn stepped into her path. She was several paces away when she noticed him. Stopping abruptly in mid-stride, she nearly stumbled before catching her balance. "Hi," she said, sounding out of breath. She leaned over and rested her hands on her knees for a moment.

"Are you well?" Legolas asked her, scanning her quickly for any signs that she was in trouble.

"I'm fine," she said as she regained her breath. "I guess I lost track of time." She straightened up and looked at them as she reached up to remove two small objects from her ears. "I wasn't expecting you to show up just yet. Have you been here long?" She gave Legolas a curious look. "What's with the weaponry?"

Legolas finally realized that she was in no danger and there was no need for his bow and arrow, and they disappeared from his hands. Lauren gave him a strange look, but turned her attention to Aragorn as he began to speak.

"We have only been here for a few moments," Aragorn reassured her. "What are those?" he asked curiously, pointing to the small devices she held in her hand.

"See for yourself," she said with a grin, walking closer to him and offering him one of the objects.

He took it warily and slowly lifted it to his ear. When it was close enough, he heard a loud steady beat coming from the object. Having been around her for several days now, he easily recognized it as what she thought of as music. Smiling wryly, he handed it back to her. "I should have guessed. But where is the music coming from?"

She reached down and unclipped a small device from the waistband of her jogging pants. "It's called an iPod. It stores a large amount of music for playback and sends it through the ear pieces so I can listen to my music without bothering anyone else with it."

"So, hearing elvish music has not convinced you to put your music aside?" Aragorn asked with a smile.

"Not quite," she said. She looked over to Legolas. "Don't get me wrong, your music is great, but it really doesn't have much of a beat. I need something to keep me going, keep me on pace when I run."

"Why were you running?" Legolas asked. Though he had made his bow and arrow disappear, he was ready to call them back if they were needed.

"It's a great way to clear my head," Lauren said. "And besides, I normally go running a few times a week. It's great exercise, and it gets me outside in good weather. I have an indoor track that I run on in bad weather, but that isn't nearly as interesting." She shrugged as she tucked the iPod and ear pieces back into their pouch.

"You run simply for exercise?" Aragorn asked. "Why would you wish to do that?" A puzzled expression was on his face, and he glanced aside at Legolas to see the same look on his face.

Lauren chuckled. "Our lifestyles have changed greatly since your time. We no longer walk or ride horses everywhere. We have other means of transportation to get from one place to another. So we have become a people who, in general, do not get enough exercise to stay healthy. Running and hiking are my favorite ways of keeping in shape."

"You said it was a good way to 'clear your head'," Legolas said, changing the subject. "Why did you feel that to be necessary?"

Lauren took a deep breath and looked around. She gestured them over to a clear spot in the grass. After they had all seated themselves, she looked steadily at first one then the other. "I suppose Aragorn has told you about how he found me a few days ago? The night that you first appeared, in fact?"

Legolas nodded. Aragorn had told them all of Lauren's near despair about her situation. It had them all worried.

She nodded. "I thought as much." She took a deep breath and tried to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. "Well, I've had nothing but time to think about things. I've managed to come to a few conclusions, and have actually found peace with all of this. While I have no desire to die, I don't fear death. I know where I'm going upon my death, and it is a wonderful place. It's actually far better than the hectic, chaotic world I live in, so death may not be such a bad thing. My only regret would be the pain my death would cause my family and friends. But I have decided that it is not in my power to affect the outcome of this. If it is my time to die, I will accept that. If not, then I will enjoy my time here as much as possible until I wake. My fate is in God's hands, where it has always been. I just needed to remember that fact."

Aragorn was a little troubled by her words. It sounded to him like she was giving up. "Are you saying that you will not fight for your life?"

"What?" Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. That wasn't quite what she meant. She decided to try to clarify her thoughts a bit better. "No, that's not what I'm saying at all. If I am given a choice, if I have any say in the matter whatsoever, I will fight to live with all the strength I have in me. But I realize that it may not be up to me. And for now, until I am given a choice in the matter, I have found peace. I am an optimistic person by nature, most of the time anyway, though my life has not always been easy. This accident knocked me for a bit of a loop, and I'm doing what I can to make the best of a bad situation. You have greatly helped me with that. If you had never shown up, I think I would surely have gone insane with only my own thoughts to keep me company. But I'm beginning to realize that my accident may be part of a grander scheme of things that I can't see yet. I think we were meant to meet, if that makes any sense at all."

There was a surety in her statement that they could not argue with. Legolas recognized the tone of voice as one that Aragorn had when he had a feeling that something was true but could not explain it. He wondered to himself if the talent of foresight had not been completely lost to Aragorn's descendants.

A red disc came flying toward them suddenly, and Legolas reflexively reached up and grabbed it out of the air before it could hit Aragorn in the head. Once he had it in his hands, he stared at it in confusion. It was made of some flexible material he had never seen before.

"Nice catch," Lauren said approvingly.

"What is this?" Legolas asked, studying the object.

"It's a Frisbee," Lauren said. "And I think those kids want it back." She held out her hand and Legolas gave her the Frisbee. With an experienced flick of her wrist, she sent it sailing back to its owners.

Aragorn and Legolas watched as it soared back over to the group of kids that it had come from.

Legolas watched as the children threw the object back and forth to each other. "I have never seen people from your world here," he commented. "Why are they here now?"

"This is the park I usually go running in, and it would feel far too strange and eerie without everyone around." Lauren shrugged casually.

"Eerie?" Aragorn questioned.

"Yes," Lauren answered. "It's safer to go running when there are people around. I know some people like to go running when they have the place to themselves, but I feel safer with others around me. Even though I know this is a dream world and there is no danger, it just makes me feel better to have people nearby when I run."

"What kind of dangers might you face if you go running when there are no others nearby?" Aragorn asked.

Lauren didn't want to worry them, so she kept her answer kind of vague. "Well, I haven't heard of any problems in this particular park, but you never know what kind of psycho might be lurking around the next bend in the path." She tried to direct their attention to something else. "I have a friend who loves horror movies, and I've watched several of them with her. The entire purpose of these stories is to scare and horrify people. Because I've seen these movies, I have images in my head of villains beyond anything you could imagine. Since this whole world is made up from my imagination, I didn't want to take the chance on having Jason, Freddy or Leatherface jumping out of the bushes at me. So imaging these people was really a way to keep my imagination from conjuring my worst nightmares."

Aragorn and Legolas were a little worried by what she didn't say. With her earlier comments, they knew there must be real dangers lurking in her world for a woman running on her own. But she obviously did not want to discuss that, so they let the subject drop for now.

"The people seem real enough," Aragorn said. "You once told me that you did not want to imagine people in this world because they did not interact with you as real people would."

"Well, I only said that carrying on a conversation with them was rather boring because they didn't say anything that I wouldn't have expected them to say. I don't typically interact that much with people in the park. I just wanted them around for my own peace of mind."

"We spoke briefly with a woman whose dog escaped her," Legolas put in. "We did not have any expectations as to how she should behave, so how did she seem so real?"

"You may not have had any expectations about her behavior, but I did," Lauren pointed out. "I assume she apologized to you and scolded the dog?"

"Yes," Aragorn said slowly. He wondered how she knew what had happened, when she was nowhere to be seen when the event happened.

"That happened to me a few weeks before the accident. It actually isn't that uncommon for a dog to take an interest in people nearby. The owners generally try to keep their dogs away from others. You never know who might have a fear of or an allergy to dogs, or who might just not like being accosted by a strange dog."

"The dog ran straight to Legolas and ignored me," Aragorn said. "We assumed it was because Legolas is an elf and has an affinity with animals that humans do not have."

"Your expectations were probably what caused the dog to act like it did," Lauren said. "I'm hardly the only one who can control this world." They simply nodded, accepting her explanation that this world and all events in it were shaped by the thoughts of all three of them.

Sensing that the conversation had reached its end, Lauren grinned at them both. "And now, we should start discussing our plans for the evening. I have so many things that I want to show you!"

Her excitement was obvious, and Legolas hated to say what he knew he must. He looked at Aragorn, then back to Lauren. "We do not have the entire night to spend here, but only a few hours."

"What? Why?" Lauren asked, glancing back and forth between them..

Legolas gave Aragorn another sidelong glance before explaining. "When we are here, our minds do not get much rest. Our bodies may be sleeping, but our minds are not. Because of this, the longer we spend here, the longer we must go without a full night's sleep. Aragorn has gone several nights now without getting the sleep he needs. It is beginning to affect his waking hours, and we are becoming concerned."

Lauren frowned at Aragorn, then reached over and lightly slapped his arm.

Aragorn returned her frown. "Why did you do that?" Her actions had him confused.

"You never told me that being here was affecting you like that." Lauren huffed in irritation and waved her arms as she spoke to emphasize her point. "The last thing I want is for our time together to hurt you. Sleep deprivation can have all kinds of nasty side effects. You need to be paying better attention to your health. I swear, men just think they're indestructible. Think about this. If you fail to take care of yourself and get sick, you won't be any help to anyone at all. And I can't allow you to jeopardize your health and safety. You have a whole kingdom relying on you, not just yourself. Why didn't you tell me about this?" She crossed her arms and glared at Aragorn with an eyebrow raised in extreme annoyance.

Aragorn just stared at her in amazement. He had only briefly glimpsed her temper in the few days that he had known her. This was a reaction he hadn't quite expected. Hearing an odd sound, he glanced over to find Legolas struggling to hold in his laughter. "What do you find so funny?" he asked, rather irritated.

Legolas let go and gave into his laughter. "You two," he said. "Look at her. Does she not remind you of someone?"

Aragorn looked back at her and saw what Legolas meant. Her expression was one that he had seen too many times on Elrond's face when he had dragged himself home in less than perfect shape after a misadventure. He couldn't help the small smile that crept onto his lips. "Yes, mellon-nín, she does."

Lauren looked between the two of them suspiciously and tapped her fingers against her arm. "Who do I remind you of?"

Legolas answered her question with a smile on his lips. "You are truly a child of Elrond. You do not know the many times we have heard a similar lecture or seen that same expression upon his face. He always took it very personally whenever either of us came to his doors injured in one way or another."

Her lips quirked into a lop-sided smile. "Fine. Though you may not have meant it that way, I think I'll take that as a compliment. Now, if this is such a problem, why are you even here?"

Aragorn gazed at her seriously. "Because I saw what happened the last time I disappeared without an explanation. I wanted to tell you why we could not be here for the full night."

She nodded, accepting that. "OK, you've explained. I understand the situation. Now, shouldn't you be leaving, or do I have to kick you out of here?" She still had her arms crossed and was gazing hard at him, seemingly ready to do whatever she could to protect him from himself.

"Could you do that?" Legolas asked in curiosity, tilting his head to the side as he watched her watch Aragorn.

She gave him an inscrutable look. "It's my world. Why couldn't I do that?" She shrugged slightly.

"It matters not whether you can or cannot," Aragorn said. "Arwen, Legolas and I agreed that Legolas and I would visit with you for a short while, and then at a specified time, Legolas will make sure that I am ready to leave, and Arwen will awaken me. She has a special tea prepared that will enable me to sleep without dreams."

"Good," Lauren said. She looked back to Legolas. "Just for future reference, if it looks like Aragorn is beginning to feel the affects of not getting enough sleep, use the tea. Now that I know what's going on, I won't be concerned if you don't show up. His health, and yours, are more important than keeping me occupied."

Aragorn gave Legolas an incredulous look. "Did she just give you permission to drug me against my will?"

Legolas laughed. "I believe she did. Not that I have ever needed permission in the past."

Shaking his head, Aragorn gave in. In this, he was greatly outnumbered. Arwen, Gimli, and Legolas were all insisting that he get more rest, and now Lauren had sided with them. He had no hope of fighting such overwhelming strength of character. "Very well. I will attempt to better watch out for my health. But for now, we still have time for a visit. What did you have in mind for our time tonight?"

She rolled her eyes. "I had plans to show you both some of the forests and national parks in my time. While there is little unspoiled land left, we do have places where the land and animals are protected. There are some very beautiful places that I have had the good fortune to visit a time or two."

Legolas' eyes lit up at the thought of getting to explore new forests, and Lauren knew she had chosen correctly.

"Well, we probably only have time to visit one of them tonight," Lauren said. "We should start with the Redwood forest, I think. The trees there are the most impressive." She looked at Legolas. "This might even be something you have never seen before. This type of tree doesn't grow everywhere. They're known as the tallest and oldest living things on earth."

Lauren laughed at the anticipation in Legolas' face. He wouldn't rush her, but she could see how anxious he was to see the trees that she was describing. She decided to stop teasing him and stood up, brushing the grass and leaves from her jeans. They followed her lead. "First things first," Lauren said and changed from her tank top, jogging pants and tennis shoes to jeans, hiking boots and a short sleeved shirt. As she closed her eyes and concentrated, the city park disappeared, and a forest of towering trees took shape around them.

Legolas and Aragorn gazed upward as the new forest formed, their mouths falling open in wonder. Lauren followed their gaze and looked up, and up, and up to the canopy of leaves far above their heads. No matter how many times she saw this, it was always an impressive sight, an awe inspiring sight, actually. Some of these trees grew as tall as a thirty-five story building, and their trunks could grow as wide as 22 feet. Aragorn had asked her last night if the sight of the galaxies made her feel small. But oddly enough, these trees could make her feel much smaller than looking at images of entire galaxies. She supposed that was because a galaxy seemed a more distant thing, while she was able to put her hand on the trees and stare up the length of the trunk. Standing next to these trees made her feel like an ant in comparison. She had seen taller buildings, but seeing a tree that large was always enough to take her breath away. Of course that could also be because she couldn't take her eyes off the tops of the trees and looking upwards like that for extended periods of time made her feel dizzy. She forced her eyes away from the trees and looked back at Legolas and Aragorn. Aragorn was still gazing upward in amazement, but Legolas was slowly turning in a circle, trying to take in everything at once. He smiled as he saw some chipmunks playing among the grass and bushes a short distance away.

Legolas walked over and placed a hand against one of the trees. "These trees are old," he said softly. "Very old."

Lauren nodded. "Some of the trees may be as old as two thousand years. Most of the trees live for a few centuries, but some of them are much older. It takes four hundred years for the trees to mature." She laughed. "Until I met you, I thought these trees were the oldest living things I would ever encounter."

Legolas barely heard her jest, so taken was he with the trees and the forest around them.

"Would you care to try climbing one of them?" Aragorn asked with a twinkle in his eyes. The bare trunks of the trees loomed above them, and the lowest branches were over halfway up the height of the tree. There were few handholds, and the trunks were too large to reach around with their arms. Climbing one of these trees would be very difficult.

"I think it would be difficult for even an elf to climb these trees," Legolas said in agreement with Aragorn's thoughts.

"It has been done before, though," Lauren said, catching their attention.

They both looked at her with expressions of amazement.

"How?" Aragorn asked. It did not seem possible to him.

Lauren explained. "Well, the smaller trees have been climbed, anyway. I don't know if anyone has any idea how to climb some of the largest trees. But you take a leather strap and wrap it around the trunk of the tree to provide leverage, and wear a pair of shoes with spikes. You have to move the leather strap upwards, dig your shoes into the side of the tree and repeat until you're as high as you want to be."

"Put spikes into the tree?" Legolas asked, aghast.

"It doesn't damage the tree," Lauren said. "And that's about the only way you're going to get up there."

"I will choose to stay on the ground, then," Legolas said, not believing the suggestion that she had just made. He had to remind himself that Lauren was a human, not an elf, and until meeting him, had never seen an elf. Humans, even in his time, typically saw trees as something to be used to build houses and such things, not as living entities that could be hurt.

Lauren's eyes shone as a thought occurred to her. "What am I saying? This is a dream, isn't it? We can do anything we like." With that, she disappeared.

Legolas and Aragorn looked around to see where she had gone.

"Up here!" Her voice faintly drifted down to them.

They looked up and saw her among the lowest branches of a tree, seated securely on a thick branch. "Think it and it will happen," she called down to them.

With a thought, Legolas found himself several branches above Lauren's head. He looked down and saw Aragorn still on the ground. Aragorn had never felt as secure as Legolas or any other elf in the branches of a tree, but he had spent far more time among the trees than most humans. "Come, Aragorn, this is a chance you do not want to miss." He called down to encourage Aragorn to join them.

Aragorn appeared moments later and found a sturdy branch to sit on. "This is higher than the other trees I have climbed my friend. I would not wish to fall from this one."

"That would probably be a bad thing," Lauren agreed. "I don't know if you guys can actually get hurt here, but I don't want to chance it. Remember that grandfather paradox I told you about? I'd really hate for anything to happen to you, Aragorn. You could wipe out my entire family in a split second."

"But if you are descended from Eldarion, having something happen to Aragorn would not destroy your family line," Legolas put in, seeing a flaw in her reasoning.

"And what if I am descended from another child that does not yet exist?" Lauren pointed out. "I have absolutely no way of knowing the exact trace of my genealogy. I can't let anything happen to Aragorn here. I can't risk it."

"It is so nice to hear your genuine concern for my safety," Aragorn said wryly. Lauren's only concern seemed to stem from her desire not to change history and possibly destroy her family. He could see why she would be concerned with that, but he was feeling rather as if that was all she cared about.

"Sorry," Lauren said, hearing the sarcasm in his voice. "I didn't mean that how it sounded. I really don't want anything to happen to either of you, simply because I have come to care about you both. Is that better?"

Aragorn rolled his eyes and Legolas hid a smirk as Aragorn replied in a long-suffering tone of voice. "Yes, Lauren. That will do. Now, how much experience do you have with tree climbing?

"I haven't climbed a tree since I was a child, but I used to love playing in the trees. I was lucky enough, or skilled enough, never to have fallen from one. I've never been up this high, but I often wondered what it would be like to climb one of these. It's a good thing I'm not afraid of heights." She stood up and grabbed a branch about chest level and began climbing higher.

That seemed to be all the encouragement Legolas needed, and he was soon out of sight of the two humans, climbing with greater speed and agility than the others possessed. Aragorn laughed. "We may not see him again until this night is over. I do believe you have sufficiently distracted him to the point that he will not be overly concerned about the time."

Lauren glared at Aragorn as she reached the branch that he had chosen to sit on. "But you'll watch the time, won't you? Or do I need to choose an appropriate time and kick you out?"

"No," Aragorn said with a sigh. "You do not need to take matters into your hands. I will take responsibility for my own health, thank you. We have another half-hour before we reach the time that was set for us."

Lauren chose a branch beside Aragorn's to sit on. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree and let one leg dangle in the open air. "So, I take it from your earlier comment that you've fallen from a few trees in your time?"

"I grew up as a child among elves," Aragorn commented. "I was ever trying to do all the things they could do. But humans do not have the agility of elves in the trees."

"Yeah, I kind of saw that," she said, glancing up to where Legolas had disappeared.

"As a result of attempting to keep up with my brothers or other elves, I ventured where humans were not meant to go. I found out the hard way that branches thick enough to hold the weight of an elf may not hold the weight of a human."

"Ouch," she said, thinking of the pain that probably resulted from some of those falls.

"Yes," Aragorn agreed. "I broke several bones in falls, and received a number of bruises."

"I was lucky, then," she said. "Though I followed my older brother around for most of my childhood and acquired my share of bumps and bruises, I managed not to break anything. I've never had a broken bone in my life."

"Are you sure she is related to you, Aragorn?" a voice came from the branches above their heads.

They looked up to see Legolas climbing back down toward them. "It seems unlikely to me that a relative of yours could reach adulthood with no broken bones."

Lauren laughed. "If recklessness is a family trait, my brothers more than make up for me. They are both daredevils. I seemed to be the only one of us with any common sense at all when we were younger. So when Jeff was heading higher into the tree than he should, or crossing a makeshift bridge that could never have held his weight, I was the one staying behind and telling him that he was going to get himself killed. And when he inevitably got hurt, I had to drag him home to our parents."

"So your brothers are the adventurous ones?" Aragorn asked.

"Now, I never said I wasn't adventurous, just that I was smarter at knowing our limits. Don't forget, for me to be able to warn him or drag him home, I had to be right there beside him to start with. And I'll admit that not all of our little adventures were his idea. It's just that his ideas tended to be more likely to lead to injuries."

"It sounds like he takes after his grandfather, then," Legolas said lightly. "I cannot even count the number of times that I had to drag Aragorn back to his father, or even my own, whichever happened to be closer."

"And I dragged you back injured just as many times," Aragorn said. "Do not try to convince her that I was the only one getting hurt. Ada threatened to tie us both up and keep us from leaving Imladris, not just me."

"He only included me in his threat because he knew that if I left, you would do whatever it took to follow me. And we both know what kind of trouble follows you."

Aragorn protested loudly, then heard a peal of laughter and turned to look at Lauren quizzically.

"You two are worse than Jeff and me!" she exclaimed. "Listening to you, no one would guess your true ages."

Aragorn glared at her for a moment, then gave in and gave a sheepish grin. "Did you and your brother often have arguments like this one?"

She grinned at him. "Well, Jeff tried to pin some of the worst misadventures on me, but no one believed him. They really were all his fault." The wicked grin on her face belied her statement.

Aragorn raised an eyebrow at her. "Why do I find that I do not believe that?"

"I wouldn't have the slightest idea why you would doubt me," Lauren said with an innocent look on her face. After a moment of withstanding Aragorn's disbelieving look, she gave in. "OK, fine. Not all of them were his fault. There was one time that I can remember. I was about five, so he would have been eight. We were out exploring the hills behind our house, and I found this hole in the ground. It really didn't seem like much, but I wanted to check it out. It was large enough to crawl into, and so I did. It turned out that the hole opened up a bit in the back. It wasn't a real cave, but it was enough like one to spark my imagination."

Legolas looked askance at her. "You willingly crawled into a hole that wasn't even large enough to be a cave?"

"Yeah," she said. "Our father had taken us cave exploring a few times, and I thought I was this great adventurer at the time. I imagined that I had found a cave used by pirates to store hidden treasure." She grinned at their amused looks. "I did say I was five, didn't I? I had a great imagination at that age. I didn't have the faintest idea that it could have been dangerous. Children at that age don't really have much of a self-protective instinct. They don't imagine that anything really bad could happen to them."

"What happened?" Aragorn asked. He had the feeling that there was more to this story than she had told them so far.

"Well, Jeff didn't really see where I had gone. He has always been very protective of me, and I think I panicked him when I suddenly disappeared. He started running around looking for me, and I guess the ground wasn't all that stable."

Aragorn's eyes widened and Legolas shuddered as they saw where this story was headed. "It collapsed?" Aragorn asked.

"Yeah, it started falling down on my head. I headed back out of the hole, but didn't quite reach the end before I found myself pinned. It was a very good thing that Jeff was there. I had managed to get part of my arms out, and he saw me. It didn't take him long at all to dig me out, since the dirt was loose. All he really had to do was pull me out. But if he hadn't been there, I probably would have suffocated. He saved my life that day. And our parents never found out. Jeff covered for me and made up some excuse for how I got so dirty. He was even more protective of me after that."

"I thought you claimed to have more common sense than your brothers," Aragorn said in disbelief. Her story certainly did not show much common sense.

"Most of the time. I couldn't be expected to know everything, could I? But I never crawled into another hole without someone first telling me that it was safe. I _can_ learn from my mistakes, you see."

"But you went back underground?" Legolas asked in surprise. He would have thought that such an experience would have convinced her never to go underground again.

"Sure, I love exploring caves. There are some really amazing sights in them. Do you not like caves?" She saw something in his expression that suggested he was horrified with her story.

"While I will admit that there can be places of exceeding beauty in caves, I do not enjoy venturing beneath the earth," Legolas said carefully.

"Oh, then I suppose I should cross Carlsbad Caverns off of our list of places to visit?" There was a look of some disappointment on her face.

"If those are caves, then yes, I would appreciate that," Legolas responded.

"OK, fine, no caves. Though I have seen some really beautiful ones." Legolas just gave her a guarded look and she shrugged. "Just checking." She tried to find something else to talk about. Legolas obviously had issues with caves. She glanced up to the tops of the trees and remembered that he had just come back from there. "So, what is the view like from the treetops?" she asked.

"I cannot find the words to do it justice," Legolas said thankfully, going along with the change in subject. "Would you like to see for yourself?"

Lauren raised her eyebrows. "Do you think a human is capable of climbing to the very top?"

"This is a dream, is it not?" Legolas asked. "There should be nothing you are not capable of doing."

Lauren looked at Aragorn with a twinkle in her eyes. "Shall we?"

Aragorn exchanged a glance with Legolas. "Very well. It will be your responsibility to make sure that she does not fall."

"And who will watch out for you?" Legolas asked, grinning.

Aragorn frowned. "It may have been a few years since I have climbed a tree, mellon-nín, but I have hardly forgotten what you and the others have taught me. I am perfectly capable of climbing any tree that Lauren can."

Legolas laughed, deciding not to remind him of the many times he had been all that kept Aragorn from falling from a tree. "Very well," he agreed. "I will lead the way and show Lauren where it is safe to step. You can follow in her footsteps, and watch out for her from below."

Aragorn nodded. Standing up, they let Legolas lead the way to the upper branches of the trees. It was slow going at first, but Lauren got quicker as she gained confidence in her climbing abilities. Before the end of the half-hour was up, they stood upon the highest branches that would hold a human's weight. Legolas changed things with a thought so that the uppermost branches were suddenly thick enough to hold a human and took them higher so they could look out over the tops of the trees.

"Wow," Lauren breathed out softly. She gazed across the top of the canopy of leaves. The view from here was spectacular. A bald eagle soared above them, even above the tops of the tallest trees. She could never have imagined the view stretched out in front of her. The scene before them had to have come from Legolas' mind. Aragorn was quiet as he stood beside her, simply taking in the view. It seemed that they were on the top of the world. Legolas had been right, Lauren thought. There were no words to describe the beauty before them.

They were silent for a long moment before Legolas turned away from the view to face them. "I am sorry I must say this, but I believe our time is over for tonight. We must leave, Aragorn."

Aragorn sighed. "I hate to leave, but it appears that we must." He looked around one last time and then turned back to the others. "Before we leave, let us return to the ground. I do not know if anything could happen to harm Lauren in this world, either, but I do not wish to test it."

Lauren nodded. "Fine, see you on the ground." With a last wistful gaze at the scenery around them, she disappeared. Aragorn and Legolas followed, and they all found themselves standing at the base of the tree they had just climbed.

"What do you intend to do after we leave?" Aragorn asked.

"I'll probably hike the trails around here for awhile," Lauren said. "There are some beautiful, peaceful trails around here. After that, I'll find something else to do. Don't worry about me. You just go back and get some sleep. You need to take care of yourself, now, OK?"

Aragorn sighed and gave her a long-suffering look. Why was it that all those around him insisted on mothering him, even those nearly a century younger than him? A brief thought flickered in his mind. Was this what Legolas had felt like when he had taken care of the elf after an injury?

Lauren hid a smile at the expression on Aragorn's face. He seemed to hate people fussing over him.

"I'll see you both tomorrow night," she said. "We can pick up where we left off and see a few more natural wonders of my world."

The look in Legolas' eye made it clear that he did not want to wait until the next night, but without Aragorn, he could not stay in Lauren's dream world, so he had no choice.

"Until tomorrow then," Legolas said.

Aragorn nodded toward her, and then they both disappeared as Arwen woke Aragorn up.

Lauren looked around her to get her bearings, then set off for a trail that she remembered from her last trip out here, several years before.


	9. Meeting Arwen

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

Chapter Nine - Meeting Arwen

When Aragorn appeared in the dream world, he looked around to determine where he was this time. He seemed to be in a beautiful wooded area in the height of spring. The sun was shining through the trees, rays of light illuminating patches of the forest floor. There were a variety of birds singing, their voices highlighting the calm and peaceful atmosphere surrounding him. He listened intently, and was able to hear the faint sounds of Lauren's music. A grin spread across his face. Finding Lauren had never required any of his tracking skills, merely the ability to follow his ears. He quickly summoned Legolas, and watched as the elf joyfully took in their surroundings.

Legolas turned to face Aragorn after fully absorbing the details of the woods around them. "Are you going to summon Arwen?"

Arwen had listened to their tale of the previous evening and decided that it was time she joined them. She had wanted to meet Lauren, and finding out that they were going to be exploring the forests of Lauren's world had decided the issue. She had asked Aragorn to summon her when they arrived. Aragorn thought that since she had the same connection to Lauren that he did, she would be able to join them without any help from him, but she wanted Aragorn to choose the best time for her to appear.

"Do you think we should tell Lauren first that Arwen will be joining us?" Aragorn asked, surprised that Legolas did not want to notify Lauren that they would be bringing more company.

Legolas' eyes shone with mischief. "No, I think we should surprise her."

Aragorn frowned, remembering Lauren's reaction to unexpectedly meeting Legolas. But surely, now that she knew any elf she met was likely to be real, there would be no more misunderstandings. "Very well," he said, summoning Arwen to join them.

Arwen appeared beside Aragorn and gazed around with delight. "This looks much like the woods near Imladris. Is this scenery your doing?" she asked Aragorn and Legolas.

"Nay," Aragorn said. "This is the world I appeared in. These woods came from Lauren's mind, not mine." A wave of his hand indicated the forest around them.

"Where is she?" Arwen asked. "I greatly desire to meet this distant granddaughter of ours." Her eyes shone with anticipation as she thought of finally getting to meet the woman she had heard so much about.

"Listen," Aragorn said.

Legolas and Arwen listened, and easily picked up the sound of music coming from the woods to Aragorn's right. Legolas smiled, knowing that the music indicated Lauren's location. Arwen nodded in understanding and gestured for the men to lead the way. Legolas led them and Aragorn took Arwen's arm as they followed him. "We have not prepared her for the possibility of meeting you, so I do not truly know what she will do or say," Aragorn said softly as they walked. "She is not in the habit of reacting to things as we would expect."

"So I have determined from your stories." Arwen's tone was amused. "Do not worry, my love. I will be prepared for any reaction she may have."

Aragorn nodded and they fell silent as the music grew louder and Lauren came into sight. She was lying on what seemed to be a fishing net strung between two trees. Her eyes were closed and an open book was lying on her stomach as if she had put it down before falling asleep. It was apparent that she was not asleep however, as one leg was draped over the side of the net and pushing lightly on the ground to cause the net to swing gently back and forth. The fingers of one hand were also tapping her leg in time to the mellow, but upbeat music that she was listening to. A small table just below the level of the net was sitting within arms reach bearing a plate of chocolate covered strawberries.

Legolas grinned as he saw the fruit. Since Lauren had not seemed to notice their approach, he spoke to get her attention. "Look, Aragorn. Someone went fishing and made quite a catch."

A smile spread across Lauren's face. She spoke without opening her eyes. "It's a hammock, not a fishing net, Legolas. I'm using it exactly as it is intended to be used. If you're hungry though, help yourself to the strawberries. I know how much you enjoyed them last time."

Legolas took her up on the offer and quickly popped one of the strawberries in his mouth.

Aragorn chuckled and a smile crossed Arwen's face. Lauren had yet to realize that anyone besides Aragorn and Legolas were there. "What are you doing?" Aragorn asked. It was rare to find Lauren sitting even remotely still.

"Relaxing," she answered lazily. "It took a while, but I finally realized that I don't have to keep busy every second. Life in my world is so fast paced that relaxing doesn't always come easily, but I think I figured out how to do it. Besides, after what the two of you told me about needing rest in the real world, I thought I should take some time to rest here, or when I wake up from this coma, I'm just going to roll over and go back to sleep."

Aragorn was relieved to hear her say 'when' not 'if' she woke up. It appeared that she had not given up hope after all. "I have someone I would like you to meet," he commented.

Her eyes opened at that comment, and she saw Aragorn, Legolas, and an unknown elf standing before her. She scrambled quickly out of the hammock, nearly tripping herself as she tried to get to her feet. Her mouth dropped open and she stared at Arwen in much the same way she had stared at Legolas upon their first meeting. She consciously forced herself to close her mouth and attempted to regain her composure. She lowered her head and gave a short curtsey before rising and looking at Arwen. "Good day, Lady Arwen."

"You know who I am?" Arwen asked her.

"You could be nobody else," Lauren answered. "Though, I believe that Aragorn didn't fully describe your beauty. As I'm sure you know, I'm the one that Aragorn has been spending his nights with." She paled as she thought about how that sounded. "I mean, I'm the one he's been dreaming of." She closed her eyes, reached up and gave herself a soft slap across the face. "I'm just making it worse," she muttered to herself. She opened her eyes again and after a deep breath, tried once more. "How about we start over? I'm Lauren."

Aragorn, Arwen and Legolas were having a very difficult time not laughing at Lauren's reaction to meeting Arwen.

Lauren looked over to Aragorn. "Apparently it's not just Legolas. I turn into a babbling idiot anytime I meet an elf." That comment did it, and the other three gave into their laughter. A wry grin on Lauren's face showed that she was not offended by their laughter.

"I am sorry," Lauren said as the laughter died down. "But I really wasn't expecting to meet you tonight, and I don't seem to do well with that type of surprise." A light glare in Aragorn and Legolas' direction made it clear that she would have preferred having some notice.

Aragorn winced inwardly, knowing he should have prepared her first. But she seemed to have enough of a sense of humor about her own reaction that he knew she wasn't completely humiliated by this.

"Do not concern yourself with your reaction," Arwen soothed her. "I took no offense." She stepped away from Aragorn and approached Lauren.

"I'm glad," Lauren said, staring at Arwen in curiosity now. "So, you're my grandmother, many generations removed."

"So it would seem," Arwen responded, staring back in equal curiosity. She studied Lauren's attire and hairstyle. "Your clothing is quite unusual. Is that not men's clothing that you wear?"

Lauren's eyebrows rose in surprise. "What?" She looked down at herself before she realized what Arwen meant. "Oh, you mean the jeans? This style of clothing is not just reserved for men any longer. Men, women, old and young wear jeans. It's one of the most comfortable styles there is. Women do still wear dresses, but when I want to wear casual clothes, I always wear jeans." She looked at Arwen's floor length dress. Not even her shoes could be seen. "How do you handle horseback riding, fighting, or anything physical in long dresses? Don't you trip over the hem?"

Arwen chuckled. "No, but I assume this is merely a matter of how we were raised. I have never thought of wearing anything other than gowns." A secretive smile crossed her lips as she thought of the few times when she was younger and had dressed in a tunic and leggings to race or compete with her brothers. At those times, a long dress was not entirely practical.

Lauren shrugged. "Well, yeah, I guess it wasn't until fairly recently that most women began wearing pants and jeans rather than dresses for everyday wear. But I still think jeans are far more comfortable." She gazed wistfully at Arwen's dress. "Though, I have to say that your dress is truly gorgeous. You wouldn't find anything like that in my world."

"Is that because women do not wear gowns like this any longer?" Arwen asked, gesturing at her dress.

"Partly," Lauren said, moving in closer for a better look. She gave Arwen a questioning look and, receiving permission, lifted the sleeve of Arwen's dress to examine the fine details. "But even if that was the style, I'd never be able to afford many like that. The material alone would be worth several of my outfits. Add in that gold thread, the beading, the hand-stitching and embroidery, and that one dress is worth most of my clothes put together." When she finished examining the sleeve, she released the material and took a step back.

"Your clothing is not hand-stitched?" Arwen asked in confusion. How else would clothing be made? "Then how was it made?" She could not refrain from asking the question.

"Well, people use sewing machines." Lauren tried to explain how a sewing machine worked. "This machine has a needle that can place stitches much more quickly than can be done by hand. All you have to do is put the thread in the machine, then pull the material through for a nice straight stitch in a matter of moments. Not many people take the time to actually hand stitch an entire article of clothing," Lauren said. "The majority of clothing is mass-produced. Come to think of it, most items are mass-produced, not just clothing. Items that are hand made have become rarer, and all the more treasured." Her voice was a little wistful at the thought that no one had time or the inclination to do things by hand anymore.

"You do not make your clothing yourself then?" Arwen asked to clarify the matter.

"Oh, no." Lauren sounded rather appalled at the very thought. "I took a sewing class in school, but I was horrible at it. We were supposed to learn how to use a sewing machine to make a stuffed animal or an article of clothing. Mine didn't quite turn out like they were supposed to. I can sew on a button or stitch up a ripped seam, and that's about the extent of my sewing abilities. I go to clothing stores and browse until I find a style I like, in the colors I like, and in my size. That's not always easy, but I don't often come home from shopping empty handed." She paused in thought. "Maybe that's why I have a closet full of clothes I rarely wear." The last line was muttered under her breath.

Lauren shook her head as if to shake away an irrelevant thought, and Arwen noticed a glint of sunlight reflecting off of something metal in Lauren's ears. "Is that metal in your ears?" She leaned closer as if for a better look.

"What?" Lauren asked, reaching up to see if there was something wrong with her ears. When she felt her earrings, she realized what Arwen was referring to. She pushed her hair aside so the others could see the metal stud in her ear. "This is an earring. I have a matching one on the other side." She pulled her hair back and showed them the other one. "They're items of jewelry."

"Does that go completely through your ear?" Legolas asked in horror.

"Yes," Lauren said in confusion. "I take it your culture doesn't do any form of body piercing for decorative or other purposes?"

"No," Aragorn said. "Neither the elves nor those from Gondor or Rohan have ever used this practice. I have seen examples of this in distant cultures, however. Is there some cultural significance to your…jewelry?" Though he had seen this before in other cultures, he was a little surprised that Lauren would have worn jewelry such as this.

"Not really," Lauren said. "It's just a common practice among people in my culture. There are some really beautiful sets of jewelry out there. I have several sets of matching necklaces and earrings at home. Most of my outfits just wouldn't look complete without earrings." Lauren shrugged, as it did not seem like such a big deal to her.

"How do you change earrings?" Aragorn asked. "Would not the injury have healed around the metal, holding it in place?"

Lauren shook her head. "You have to take care of them pretty carefully while they're healing. I had to twist the earrings several times a day and treat my ears with a solution to keep them from getting infected. My ears healed with no trouble, and the earrings come out very easily." To prove it, she reached up and took the back off of one earring and pulled it from her ear, showing them the healed hole, and then easily replaced the item of jewelry.

"It sounds painful," Legolas commented. "I cannot imagine that you would willingly allow someone to put holes in your body." He had been injured far too many times to accept that anyone would be so willing to suffer the pain just for fashion's sake.

"Oh, it only hurt for a moment, and then ached for a little while longer." Lauren waved his concern away with a flip of her hand. "But really, one hole in each ear is mild compared to some I've seen. Some people have piercings all the way up their ears. I can imagine that hurt quite a bit more. And that isn't even taking into consideration all the other body piercings I've seen."

"Body piercing? You mean to say that people put holes in other parts of their bodies as well?" Legolas asked in somewhat morbid fascination.

"Yes." Lauren nodded and continued. "I've seen piercings in noses, lips, tongues, eyebrows, belly buttons, and heard of a few other places which I won't mention." She grinned at the looks of horror on their faces.

"Why would people wish to do this?" Arwen asked, shuddering at the thought. She glanced at Aragorn and Legolas to see that they were just as horrified that people would do that to themselves.

"It's mostly younger people who go for body and facial piercing," Lauren explained. "Though there probably are some older people who choose to do it as well. It's a fad, a current style. I've never had the urge to do it, but I think people do it to set themselves apart from the crowd, to make them stand out and not look like the older generations. Then there are the people who get tattoos for much the same reason, to stand out. That form of body decoration includes a wider age group, though."

"Tattoo?" Legolas asked hesitantly. He had never heard the word before, but was unsure if he really wanted to know what it was, after what he had already heard.

"It's basically a permanent design or image put on someone's body," Lauren explained. "It's when certain dyes are injected with needles under the skin to form the desired image."

"Do you have one of these images?" Legolas asked in fascination.

"No," Lauren said. "That procedure would be much more painful than simply getting pierced ears, and I really don't want to think about inviting that kind of pain. I'm kind of a baby about pain. And besides, I guess I've never really seen the point in it. What if you decide at a later point in life that you don't want that design anymore? There is a surgery that can remove it, but that just means more pain and a lot more expense than the original tattoo." She shook her head at the thought of all the money there was to be made in both creating and removing tattoos.

"Is appearing different truly so important?" Arwen asked, gazing at Lauren. Lauren's world seemed so strange to her.

"To some people, yes. There are so many different groups out there, and some of them have very distinct styles of dress. There are goth styles, punk styles, grunge styles, and the more mainstream styles. Each group has its own style of clothing, of hairstyles, and even a common set of attitudes and musical tastes. There are so many diverse groups out there that there should be a group for everyone. No one should be left to feel outcast, but unfortunately that isn't the case." Her voice grew sadder as she finished. Lauren shook her head as she realized that they were all just standing in the clearing and quickly conjured up four chairs for them to sit in. She took a seat and gestured for the others to sit.

"Do many of your world feel they are outcasts?" Aragorn asked once they had all been seated.

"More than you would imagine," Lauren said. "For example, there is a standard of beauty for women in my country that very few of us have any hope of meeting. This standard is perpetuated by models, movie stars, and the media. Those who don't meet this standard often feel inferior, self-conscious about their appearance." She conjured up a few magazines and flipped through them to show the others the advertisements and the models in the pages. Legolas and Arwen turned slightly pink as they saw some very scantily clad models.

"Oops, let's skip the underwear advertisements," Lauren muttered, turning the pages until she found a close up facial shot for a makeup ad.

"Were those women wearing the same type of attire you were when we first met?" Aragorn asked, having seen a glimpse of the image as she flipped through the pages.

"No," Lauren said. "Though they look very similar, bikinis are meant to be worn alone, and only at certain places like beaches and swimming pools. The items those models were wearing are meant to be worn under clothing."

"You would appear in public wearing no more than the women in those pages?" Legolas asked, completely shocked. He had thought Lauren more modest than that. None from his time would ever consider being seen in so little.

Arwen shot a glance between Lauren and Aragorn, realizing just what Lauren had been wearing when she met Aragorn. Her eyebrows rose as she imagined that first meeting. Arwen knew that Aragorn would have been very embarrassed, and she smiled slightly to herself. It would have been quite entertaining to see Aragorn's expression.

"Only in certain places where that is the expected style of dress," Lauren reiterated. From Legolas' reaction, she was rather glad she had not been wearing a bikini when he first appeared. It seemed he would have been even more embarrassed than Aragorn had been. "But that wasn't the reason I showed you these magazines. I just wanted to show you what type of facial and body features are considered beautiful in my world. As you can see from the magazines, very few women would ever be able to look like that. This has helped to create a culture of insecure women. You wouldn't believe the lengths that some women go to in an attempt to feel better about the way they look." Lauren took a few minutes to explain cosmetic surgeries like face-lifts, nose jobs, breast implants and liposuction.

The others stared at her aghast. "People actually have surgeries simply to improve their appearance?" Aragorn asked finally. "Has medicine advanced to the point that people would have these procedures so lightly?" His expression was one of utter incredulity.

Lauren shrugged. "Well, these procedures are supposed to be routine, but there is always a risk to any surgery. It just saddens me that our society has reached a point that people feel the need to have these surgeries. And I can't help but wonder if the people who do this ever feel satisfied. I believe that all women feel self-conscious about one or more aspects of their physical appearance. Like I said, that's kind of hard to avoid. But is it that aspect that is keeping them from being happy? I don't know. I can't help thinking that it goes deeper than physical appearances for most people." Lauren crossed her legs in her chair and propped her elbows on her knees and stared at the ground. The current topic was beginning to depress her.

"Are you unhappy with any aspects of your appearance?" Arwen asked carefully, realizing how touchy this subject could be.

"Sure," Lauren said, looking up. "There are several minor things that I'm not satisfied with, but I don't let it bother me. I'm happy with who I am, and that's enough." She looked at Arwen with a critical eye. "You, on the other hand, would be able to command any amount of money if you went into modeling. As long as my world didn't freak out at the existence of elves, anyway." Lauren chuckled. "Among models, the younger ones make the most money, usually. As soon as models reach their upper 20's and low 30's, they find it harder to keep modeling jobs. You wouldn't have that problem, would you? You don't age. You'll never have wrinkles on your face. Do you have any idea how many people would give anything to be like that? Our society is a very youth based one. Appearing young is very important. Finding that first wrinkle or that first gray hair is a very traumatic experience."

"Do your people still seek immortality?" Aragorn asked, remembering what led to the downfall of the Númenoreans.

"Do they ever," Lauren commented. She also remembered the story he had told her. "Except now, instead of trying to wrest the secret of immortality from the gods, people are turning to science. There are a lot of people who are studying what happens to people as they age and trying to figure out how to stop or reverse the affects."

Aragorn studied her for a moment. "You do not sound as if you approve of this."

Lauren sighed. "I don't approve of people trying to play God. I do approve of medical research aimed at curing disease and healing injuries. I may question some of their practices, but I know most of them are working for the betterment of humanity. But humans were not meant to live forever. And our world is crowded as it is. I don't mean to sound harsh, but what happens if people stop dying, but people don't stop having children? We'll overrun the limits of this world far too quickly. Death is a natural part of life." She looked at Arwen and Legolas. "For humans, anyway." She gave another tired sigh. "There is a lot about my world that I don't agree with, but that's not what you came here to hear." Deciding that she was getting sick of the current topic, she stood up, feeling the need to move. She had been far too still in that conversation and was done with sitting here dwelling on such dismal thoughts.

She looked at Aragorn and Legolas. "I assume you told Arwen about the Redwood Forest yesterday?" At their nod, she turned to look at Arwen. "And you decided you wanted to see some of the forests of my world?"

"I also wanted to meet you, but yes," Arwen answered. She stood as well, seeing that they were moving on to something else. Aragorn and Legolas stood as well, and the chairs disappeared as if they had never been there.

"Then let's get to it," Lauren said. "Talking too much about the problems in my world will just serve to frustrate me. So, what would you like to see first?" She rubbed her hands together in thought. "I think we should start with Crater Lake National Park. It's difficult to find a spot more beautiful, in my opinion."

"That sounds like a good place to start, then," Aragorn said. The differences between their cultures was something that interested him greatly, but it sounded like Lauren was rather disillusioned with her world and he did not wish to sadden her further.

"Now, where do we want to appear for the best view?" Lauren murmured to herself. A grin spread across her face and she looked at the others. "Ready?" When they nodded, she closed her eyes and concentrated on their surroundings. The woods around them faded and were gradually replaced by different scenery. They appeared to be standing on the side of a mountain, and the view spread out around them was truly spectacular.

The slope below them was covered in evergreen trees, a vibrant green like that seen in the height of spring. A deep blue lake spread out at the bottom of the slope. There was an island in the middle of the lake, rising high above the still surface. The azure water was a deeper reflection of the clear vivid blue of the sky. There was not a cloud to be seen to break up the unending aquamarine sky. The tallest mountains around the lake were snow topped, a clear white that sparkled in the light of the sun. The entire scene seemed fresh, new, and completely calm.

Lauren let out a contented sigh as she gazed around her. "I've always loved this view," she murmured to herself. She looked around to see the reactions of the others.

Arwen was gazing at everything in delighted wonder. "It's beautiful." Her voice was hushed in wonder. She had never seen a place quite like this before.

Legolas was likewise taken with the beauty of the view and failed to answer.

Aragorn took note of the circular shape of the mountains surrounding the lake. "How was this place formed?" he asked.

"This is the site of an ancient volcano." Lauren explained. "Scientists think it exploded over seven thousand years ago and then collapsed to form a deep basin that later filled with water. This is one of deepest lakes in the world. It **is** the deepest in my country. It's kind of strange to think that such beauty can result from such a violent beginning."

"Is this a safe place to be?" Aragorn asked her, concerned about the possibility of volcanic activity. Seeing Mount Doom was enough to make him quite wary of volcanos.

"Well, it's been stable for thousands of years," Lauren shrugged. "I haven't heard scientists giving any warning about seismic activity, so even if we were in the real world, I think this is a pretty safe place to be. But there are places around here where the ground may not be quite stable, so visitors are always told to stick to the marked paths. Venturing off those paths could be dangerous. But as long as we avoid those paths, we should be fine."

Aragorn noticed how her eyes kept straying to the lake. "You enjoy the water, do you not? First the beach and now this lake?"

Lauren smiled. "As much as Legolas finds beauty in the trees and growing things, I always find more beauty in water. As I said, I love the water; swimming, boating, or just lying on the shore and staring at it. Still lakes, raging rivers, gurgling streams, or the rolling waves of the ocean, it's all beautiful to me."

"I agree," Arwen said, breaking into the conversation. "Water is the source of life. Without it, the trees and 'growing things' as you called them could not live. But there is beauty in the life that it creates as well."

"Oh, no question there," Lauren said. "I would never argue that beauty does not exist in the trees themselves. I love spring, when the bare branches of the trees start to bud with flowers and new leaves. After the brown of winter, the explosion of color that spring brings can't help but lift my spirits. I've never had a garden or anything, but I have always enjoyed flowers of all varieties, the green grass and new leaves of spring. There's just something special in the air in spring. And after all, trees and green plants are essential to the survival of humanity."

"I could not imagine living in a place without trees," Legolas said as he approached them from his wanderings among the trees. "But I do not think I have ever heard a human say that they were essential to their survival."

"Green plants produce oxygen," Lauren explained. "Since we need that to breathe, I consider plants to be essential to life. Not to mention that plants are the basis of our entire food chain as well. No, humanity could not survive without plants." In a quiet voice, she muttered under her breath to herself. "Now if we could just keep people from destroying the forests and jungles, we'd be doing so much better."

Legolas looked as though he wanted to ask her about that last comment, but a quick shake of her head told him that it was not a topic she wished to discuss at the moment. He nodded, accepting that she did not wish to talk about it, then turned to head into the woods around them, unable to stay away from the trees any longer. Aragorn and Arwen also seemed to want to explore the area. Lauren conjured a lawn chair and set it in a place that allowed her to enjoy her favorite view. "You guys can go explore for awhile. I'll just stay here 'til you're done."

"Are you sure?" Aragorn asked. He was unsure if they should leave her alone. Despite her usual cheerful demeanor, he was sure there was a deeper emotion that she was hiding from them. He had come here to keep her company, and did not enjoy the idea of abandoning her to go explore even a place as beautiful as this seemed to be.

"I'm fine," Lauren said with a reassuring smile. Aragorn hesitated for a brief moment before he nodded and reached for Arwen's hand, leading her into the woods to explore as Lauren had suggested. Lauren sat back and watched the others until they left her sight. She enjoyed bringing happiness to the others. This was a beautiful place, and she wanted to give them all a chance to discover its unique characteristics for themselves. She didn't want to interfere with their explorations. The three of them had known each other for much longer than she'd been alive. She had relegated herself to the role of a tour guide this time around. And a good tour guide gave people time to explore on their own. She turned her attention back to the lake and smiled. She didn't see how anyone could feel anything but happy and at peace here.

It was some time later when Legolas wandered back out of the trees. "Have Arwen and Aragorn not returned?"

"No, they're still exploring," Lauren answered easily. "Pull up a chair." She conjured another lawn chair for him and as he sat down, a small table appeared between them with a tray of chocolate covered fruit.

"You did not join them?" Legolas asked curiously.

"No, I wanted to give them some time to themselves to wander. I'm sure that with the pressures and schedule involved in running a kingdom, they don't have as much time to spend with each other as they'd like. I didn't want to interfere." Lauren waved her hand dismissively.

"Interfere?" Legolas asked in amazement, sitting up straighter in his chair. "Lauren, Arwen came to this world to meet you. She has heard so much of you from Aragorn and I that she felt she had to meet you herself."

"Well, we've met. Now she can spend some time with her husband in this beautiful place." She popped a chocolate covered cherry in her mouth and smiled at him impishly.

Legolas shook his head and glanced off to his left as a faint sound reached his sensitive ears. He made a hushing motion with his hand and then pointed in the direction of the sound. Lauren leaned forward to look around Legolas and see what it was he had seen. She held her breath as a deer stepped out of the trees with a fawn at her side.

For a long moment, the elf and human simply watched as the deer suddenly caught their scent on the breeze and turned to stare at them. Lauren found herself staring into large, limpid brown eyes as the deer tried to decide whether they were a threat to her and her child. A sound from another direction startled the deer, and she nudged her fawn back into the woods, following and melding easily into the shadows of the trees.

"Wow," Lauren breathed as the deer left. "I rarely get to see them so close."

Legolas smiled at the enchanted look on Lauren's face. "When was the last time you saw a deer this close?"

Lauren gazed off into the distance, smiling in remembrance. "Once, when I was much younger, some of my cousins ended up raising an orphaned fawn. I was visiting for the summer and got to help them bottle-feed it and take care of it for a little while. It was just the sweetest thing, with those big brown eyes. But when our vacation was over, we had to leave. I never found out what happened to it after that. Once a wild animal has been tamed, it can't be returned to the wild. Maybe they found a petting zoo or something to take it."

"What is a petting zoo?"

Lauren looked momentarily startled at the question as she was reminded that she was speaking with someone who did not know her world. "Well, a zoo is a place where people go to see all kinds of animals they wouldn't normally have a chance to see. They have different animals from all over the world. A petting zoo is kind of a smaller version of that where they have gentler animals like goats, rabbits and sheep for kids to be able to touch. Kids growing up in cities don't really have much of an opportunity to see farm animals, so this gives them a chance to see and touch the animals for themselves."

"I think I would like to see a zoo," Legolas said. "I would enjoy seeing animals from all around the world."

"We'll have to wait until Aragorn and Arwen return, and ask their opinion, but I don't think they'd object to a zoo visit. In the meantime, I can think of something else to pass the time." She conjured a book of images of as many animals as she could think of, from aardvarks to zebras, and handed it over to Legolas.

Legolas opened the book and began to look through it. Lauren reached over to the table and plucked a chocolate truffle out of the bowl of chocolates that she had just conjured. The one she picked was filled with coconut cream. She finished it off and offered the bowl to Legolas.

His eyes lit up at the thought of a new treat and he gladly accepted the offer, eagerly picking a candy out of the bowl. He took a bite and his eyes widened at the new taste.

"What is that?" he asked, holding the candy up for Lauren to see.

Lauren looked at the tan filling oozing from the center of the chocolate. "That would be caramel in the middle. I've always liked those."

"It is very good," Legolas agreed, finishing off the candy and reaching eagerly for another.

"Do you have enough to share?" Aragorn asked as he and Arwen walked out of the trees toward them.

"Always," Lauren answered gesturing and conjuring two more chairs. "Did you two enjoy your walk?"

"Yes," Arwen answered. "This is a very beautiful place." She looked over at Legolas. "I did not expect you to tire so quickly of exploring a new forest."

"I did not tire of it," Legolas said, shaking his head. "And this is a very beautiful place. But I cannot hear the trees here. It is a very odd feeling for me."

"Hear the trees?" Lauren asked, wondering what he was talking about.

"All elves have a connection with nature," Aragorn explained. "But wood elves, such as Legolas, can often actually hear the voices of the trees. Long ago, elves taught the trees to speak to them."

"Really?" Lauren asked in amazement, looking curiously at Legolas. "You can actually hear the trees speaking?"

"In a way," Legolas said. He didn't know how to explain it in a way that Lauren would understand.

Lauren shook her head, forestalling the attempt that Legolas was about to make. "I'm sorry that the trees don't speak to you here, but it makes sense that they wouldn't. All the trees now living would have grown long after all the elves left the shores of this Earth. There would have been no one to teach them to communicate."

Legolas nodded his head. "That is what I decided. But it takes away from my enjoyment of exploring just a little bit."

Lauren nodded, and to change the subject, offered Aragorn and Arwen their choice of chocolate covered fruit or chocolate truffles.

Aragorn urged Arwen to take a chocolate covered strawberry as he took one of the truffles. Lauren laughed at the look of surprise and enjoyment on Arwen's face. But then, she had met very few women who did not enjoy the taste of chocolate. Aragorn finished off his piece of candy and reached for another. "Aragorn, you are being rude," Arwen chided him gently.

"How?" Aragorn asked. "Lauren brought these for us to eat, and if the food is all eaten, she will just conjure more out of the air."

"She has fed you on more than one occasion, and have you thought to offer her anything in return?" Arwen stared at Aragorn and Legolas with a slightly reproachful gaze.

Aragorn and Legolas just looked at each other. They had been enjoying her treats so much that they had not even thought to reciprocate. Aragorn's eyes lit up. "I have just the thing to offer." A plate bearing a selection of fruit tarts appeared on the table next to the chocolates. "Please, try one," Aragorn urged. "This was always my favorite dessert as I was growing up."

"Don't mind if I do. Thank you," Lauren said. She took one of the tarts and took a bite. "Oh, that's heavenly. Homemade from scratch. It's been a very long time since I've had anything like this." She finished of the mini tart in three more bites and reached for another.

"Wait," Legolas said. "I have something you should try as well." A plate of biscuits or cookies of some sort appeared alongside the others. Lauren noticed that the table seemed to be growing in order to hold all the trays of treats. "These are honey-cakes that my mother used to make. It is called glímas, honey-bread."

Lauren took one and tried it. Her eyes widened in surprise. She quickly swallowed the bite she had taken. "Snickerdoodles!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Legolas asked in confusion. The other two stared at her as well, taken aback by her apparently nonsensical exclamation.

"Snickerdoodles are a type of cookie where I come from. This tastes almost just like them. There's cinnamon in there as well as honey, isn't there? There are differences, but they're very slight."

"Can I try one to compare it?" Legolas asked.

"Of course," Lauren said, conjuring up some cookies.

They all tried one, and decided that Lauren was right, the tastes were very similar. This prompted a sudden desire to try each and every dessert any of them had ever loved. They sat around an overflowing table and spent a long time eating, laughing, sharing stories, and enjoying each other's company.

After she had eaten more dessert than she ever would have thought possible, Lauren leaned back in her chair. "You know, I think things work differently here. I never could have eaten that much in reality. I'm kind of glad things work differently though. I'd have to run a marathon to work off the number of calories I just consumed."

"What is a marathon?" Arwen asked in curiosity.

"It's a foot race," Lauren answered. "They're usually about 26 miles long or so, it varies by race, and is more a test of endurance than of speed. Though people still try to beat the other entrants or make a good time, a lot of people are just happy to say that they managed to finish it."

"You seem to enjoy running," Legolas commented. "Have you ever been in one of these marathons?"

"Me?" Lauren asked in amazement. "No, those are for more serious runners. I just run a few times a week to keep in shape. I'd have to do a lot of training to be up for a marathon." As she thought about it, the idea seemed to appeal to her more and more. "Well, maybe I will run a marathon some day. It would be an accomplishment to be proud of, anyway."

Aragorn looked around and noticed a book leaning against the leg of Legolas' chair. "What do you have there?" he asked.

Legolas looked down, as he had forgotten about the book. He had set it down when the others had arrived. "Lauren created a book of all the animals she knows of in her world. It seems there are many that we have not seen before. Would you like to look through it with me?"

"Of course," Aragorn said. He looked over to Lauren. "But why do you not simply conjure them for us to see?"

"Legolas and I were talking about that before you arrived," Lauren said. "There are places called zoos on my world where people go to see the various animals from around the world. People try to recreate the animal's natural environment to keep them comfortable and content, and people visit these places and look at the animals."

"These animals are kept in captivity?" Legolas asked, to clarify her statement for himself.

"Well, yes," Lauren said. "The animals are captured and brought to the zoos where they are well cared for. They aren't free, but they are much safer in zoos than they would be in the wild. There are no dangers from predators or hunters in zoos. Many species of animals have dwindled to dangerously low numbers over the years. Some are extinct, that means they no longer exist, and others are on what we call the 'endangered list'. It is a crime to harm or kill any of those animals. But there are still poachers who hunt them anyway to make a profit from people who don't care about those laws. Zoos help keep certain species of animals alive. You may not like seeing the animals in captivity, but they are treated very well." She looked at him hesitantly. "Do you still want to see a zoo?"

"Yes, I would," Legolas said finally. Aragorn and Arwen nodded in agreement, a zoo sounded like something they would like to see.

"OK," Lauren said. She paused in thought for a moment. "I usually bring my niece and nephew to visit the zoo. It's a favorite destination for many children. Is there any chance that you could bring Eldarion here? I believe he would like it as well."

Aragorn and Arwen looked at each other. The thought had never really occurred to them. "I do not know," Aragorn said slowly. "Elves are able to control their dreaming beyond the level that humans can, so it is easier to summon them. But Eldarion is only half elven, and very young. His youth may make it more difficult to summon him here."

Lauren shrugged. "Actually, he'd only be about one quarter elven, but that's beside the point. Aragorn, you have a lot less elf in you than he does, and my connection has been the strongest with you. Eldarion is related to me just as you are. His age may be the stumbling block here, you're right. If he hasn't begun to develop that sense of foresight that you have, he might not know you're trying to summon him. But you'll never know unless you try, right?"

Aragorn nodded slowly and looked at Arwen. She nodded her approval of trying to bring Eldarion to join them. Aragorn closed his eyes and concentrated on thoughts of his son, attempting to contact him as he slept and wandered in his own world of dreams. After a few moments of nothing happening, Arwen placed her hand on Aragorn's arm and added her efforts to his own. A few moments later, a young boy popped into existence in front of them.


	10. A Trip to the Zoo

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

Chapter Ten - A trip to the zoo

They were all slightly surprised when the young boy suddenly appeared in front of them. None of them were really sure if they could summon him.

Lauren took note of the boy's dark curly hair, slightly pointed ears and grey eyes. She smiled at the look of confusion on his face. This had to be Eldarion. He looked too much like Aragorn to be anyone else.

"Ada? Nana? Legolas? What are you doing in my dream?" He looked over at Lauren. "And who are you?"

Aragorn smiled at his son. "Do you remember us telling you that I have been visiting a friend in my dreams at night?" When Eldarion nodded, Aragorn gestured toward Lauren. "This is the friend I was visiting. Her name is Lauren. She wanted to meet you, so we brought you here."

Eldarion turned to look at Lauren in curiosity. "How do you know my Ada? And how are we all sharing the same dream?"

Lauren grinned at his curious nature. It was the same with all kids. They wanted to know everything. She thought it was a bit of a shame that most people grew out of that stage. "Well, I'm a relative of yours; a distant…cousin," she finished. "I don't really understand it myself, but I think that because we have a common bloodline, we can see each other in dreams."

"Are you of the Dúnedain, then?" he asked, studying her intently.

Lauren looked up in question at Aragorn. She had managed to keep up with most of the 'family history' lesson she had gotten earlier, but she wasn't quite sure what the word meant, or how to answer the question.

Aragorn answered for her. "She is a distant descendant of the Númenoreans, just like you and I are, Eldarion. But she is from a land much further away. They do not think of themselves as Dúnedain. She wanted to show us some of her land, and thought you would enjoy seeing it."

"What does she want to show us?" Eldarion asked in curiosity, looking back and forth between his parents and Lauren.

"It is called a zoo," Lauren explained. "It has a lot of animals from different places around the world. My niece and nephew love visiting all the animals, and I thought you might like it as well."

He thought for a moment. "Very well, I would like to see this…zoo."

Lauren grinned to herself. That had sounded very regal, almost a command.

"Eldarion, how do you ask for something?" Arwen scolded gently.

Eldarion looked back to Lauren. "Please?"

"Of course," Lauren said. "In this place, we can travel from one place to another with only a thought. You may want to hold on to your parent's hands for this. The change in scenery can be quite disorienting the first time."

Aragorn reached out his hand and Eldarion took it, eager to see what was going to happen.

Lauren closed her eyes and thought of her favorite zoo. She tried to make the change more gradual out of the desire not to startle Eldarion, and the Crater Lake National Park faded as the entrance to a zoo formed in front of them.

Eldarion looked around in fascination while the landscape changed. Lauren led them through the entrance and took a moment to decide where to start. She thought it might be good to show them some familiar creatures before seeing the more exotic ones. She led them to the bear habitat. When they arrived at the brown bear exhibit, she leaned on the railing and looked down at the view below them. The enclosed area was created so that the bears would feel at home. There were trees, rocky ledges, and a pool for the bears to swim in to cool off. The others stopped beside her and looked over the railing.

"Those are brown bears," Eldarion said, pointing.

"Yes, they are," Lauren answered.

"Can they get to us?" Eldarion asked. He had been told to stay as far away from bears as he could when he was out in the forest. Bears could be very dangerous.

"No," Lauren said, pointing out the steep wall around the enclosure. "They can't climb those walls." She looked down at one of the bears attempting to sleep in the sun. Two bear cubs were climbing and crawling all over it.

Lauren chuckled to herself as the bear put a paw up over its eyes. "I know," she said to it sympathetically. "All you want to do is get a nice nap in the sun, and your kids want to play. That's the way it always is, isn't it? Sometimes you just have to wonder where they get all that energy." The bear huffed loudly in agreement and rolled over, dislodging the cubs before stretching out and closing its eyes once more, ignoring the cubs as they came back and resumed climbing on the bear. It opened its eyes and looked at the people at the railing as it sighed once more. Lauren laughed at the look in the bear's eyes. "Well, what do you want us to do about it? I don't think you'd be too happy if we volunteered to baby-sit."

The others were all watching Lauren in curiosity. Legolas voiced the question they all had. "You talk to the animals?"

Lauren gave him a sheepish grin. "Yeah, it's a habit of mine. I talk to my pets, and when I come to the zoo, I tend to talk to the other animals."

"Do they talk back to you?" Eldarion asked in curiosity. He had watched the exchange between her and the bear, and it certainly looked like the bear was responding to her.

"No," Lauren answered. "I just look at the body language of the animal and try to figure out what they're thinking. I play a game with my niece and nephew when we visit the zoo and we try to speak for the animals. Sometimes I think we get pretty close to what they are actually thinking or feeling."

Legolas did not doubt it. It seemed that Lauren had a close connection to the animals. Closer than most humans, anyway.

After the brown bears, Lauren took them to see a variety of other bears, including a couple of panda bears. Arwen was quite taken with their coloring. Lauren remarked that she had once had a stuffed panda bear that slept in her bed when she was little. She then took them to see the monkeys, and they all laughed at Eldarion's wide-eyed fascination with the animals. Actually, Lauren noted, they all seemed somewhat surprised by them. She guessed they had never seen any kind of monkey before and showed them all the different varieties that the zoo had. The next stop was the wolf enclosure. They had a large fenced off wooded area to roam in, and the visitors did not have access to the fence, but had to go into an area with a large piece of tinted glass between the enclosure and the visitors. Those who wanted to look at the wolves had to look through the glass, but the wolves could not see them. Lauren took them into the specified enclosure and grinned when Aragorn and Legolas looked at the wolves in what seemed to be readiness for combat.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Don't you like wolves? I have to say that they're one of my favorite animals." She trailed a hand over the glass as if she were trying to reach out and pet the wolves on the other side.

Aragorn shuddered involuntarily at being so close to the animals. It seemed like the animals were within arm's reach. "No, they are not my favorite animal. I have had to fight too many hungry wolves in my life to be comfortable with seeing them this close."

"You fought wolves?" Lauren asked suddenly, straightening up and looking at him with a horrified expression. "They're such beautiful animals, how could you do that?"

Aragorn raised his eyebrows at her and gestured toward the enclosure to indicate the wolves. "_They_ attacked _me_, Lauren. What would you have had me do? Let them eat me?"

She shook her head and relaxed her tense posture. "No, of course not. You did the only thing you could. But I just love wolves. They're such noble creatures. Did you know that wolves mate for life? You have to admire that quality. It's something too many humans don't seem capable of." The last line was spoken nearly under her breath, obviously not meant to be overheard.

Aragorn frowned slightly at the tone in her voice. There was something there, something she wasn't telling them. Deciding he would not push her at the moment, he continued on as if he had not heard her last statement. "So, you admire the wolves?"

"Yes," she paused in thought. "You know, for some reason, I seem to be drawn to the predatory animals, the wolves, jaguars, tigers, all the big cats. I wonder what that says about my personality?" She shook her head at herself and then led them to the big cat section of the zoo. She wanted to linger at the enclosures that held the lions, tigers, jaguars, mountain lions, bobcats, and various other felines. "I guess I'm more of a cat person," she mused. "They're just so beautiful and graceful, it almost makes you forget how dangerous they can be."

After the cat areas, they went to see the giraffes, elephants, kangaroos, and rhinos. Aragorn and Legolas told the others about seeing the giant mumakil, which were much larger versions of the elephants she showed them. They decided not to mention the part where they were forced to kill the great beasts in battle to save their own people. Lauren showed them a variety of birds and reptiles. Legolas was rather curious about the penguins, while Eldarion was quite fascinated with the snakes, as most little boys were. Lauren took them through an aquarium that was attached to the zoo, and they spent a great deal of time looking at the fish, sharks, dolphins, and turtles on display. After what seemed hours of walking around, Lauren led them to a picnic table near a small playground. "So, what do you think?" she asked.

"I like it here!" Eldarion burst out. He looked over at the playground equipment. "Is that to play on?"

Lauren nodded, a smile on her face. "You want to go play on them with me?"

"May I?" Eldarion asked Aragorn and Arwen. They nodded their approval, and Eldarion darted off toward the playground with Lauren in tow.

Lauren showed him how to use the slides, swings, see-saws, and other playground equipment. He had to try everything in sight, and Lauren gladly joined him. At one point, Legolas walked over to see what they were doing. He looked up to where the two were perched on the top of a jungle gym. "You seem to be quite energetic today," he said to Lauren. He had seen her excited about things before, but though rest seemed a foreign concept to her, he had never seen her quite so…frenetic, either.

She grinned down at him. "Sugar rush. You three should never have let me eat that many sweets. It tends to make me a bit hyper."

Legolas shook his head and went back to sit at the table with the others. It was only a few moments before Lauren came over to join them, leaving Eldarion to play happily on the playground.

"So, what did you three think of the zoo?" she asked.

Shaking his head, Legolas answered. "I know the reasons that your zoos exist, and I can see the enjoyment that people could take from them, but it still pains me to see so many animals in captivity, relying on humans for their every need. The predators that you so admire are no longer able to hunt. Their spirits are broken from being kept in such close quarters. No matter how much effort is put into recreating their natural environments, they are not able to live their lives as they are intended to."

Lauren sighed. "I knew you would probably have issues with that. I often have similar thoughts when I visit the zoo. I love animals and you're right, they don't belong in captivity. But zoos do serve a purpose. While the animals cannot live life as they are intended to, they are not in danger here. Many of the animals you have seen here would be in danger of being hunted by humans, even the protected species are in danger of poachers. Without zoos and other protective measures by humans, many of these species would be in danger of being hunted out of existence." She sighed at the thought. Though she knew people were doing their best to preserve the lives of the animals, she also felt much like Legolas; that zoos were an unnatural setting that stunted the animals' lives. That was just one of the many things that was wrong with the world. She tried to bring the subject around to something a little cheerier before the subject completely depressed her. "So, what did you think of the variety of animals? I could tell that none of you had seen the majority of animals here."

"There were many animals that we have never seen," Aragorn agreed, amenable to the idea of changing the tone of the conversation. "And I found the variety of animals that exist elsewhere in the world to be quite incredible."

"Where were the ketrals?" Legolas' question seemed to come out of nowhere.

Lauren looked blankly at him. "What's a ketral?"

Legolas was horrified. "You mean ketrals no longer exist?"

"I don't know," Lauren said. "We may just call them something else. What do they look like?"

Lauren looked quickly down as she felt a paw on her leg. "Well, hello," she said in surprise. An unusual creature was sitting at her feet. It had a vaguely feline face with big dark eyes and overly large ears, short legs ending in flat paws, a long body and a long thick tail. Its body was covered with fur in varying shades of brown.

"That is a ketral," Legolas said smugly as she looked at it in confusion.

She reached down and picked up the small animal, holding it carefully in her lap, not knowing how it would react. The creature rubbed its head against her hand and started purring. "Oh, aren't you just the cutest thing," she cooed to it once she realized that it was tame and very friendly. She stroked her hand down the sleek body and the purring grew louder. Lauren looked up at the others with a smile.

"It likes you," Legolas commented with a smile.

"It reminds me of my cats," Lauren replied, petting the ketral just as she would one of her own pets. She looked over at Legolas. "I don't know how to tell you this, but I've never seen an animal like this before. I don't think they exist anymore."

Legolas' face fell at the thought that his beloved pets were apparently going to die out long before Lauren's time.

Lauren looked at the animal in her lap, then back to Legolas. "There is a solution, here. Take them with you when you go to Valinor. Just because they don't exist on Earth doesn't mean that they don't exist anywhere."

Aragorn grinned over at Legolas. "Thranduil will undoubtedly love to hear that you plan to bring your ketrals to Valinor."

Legolas grimaced. "I do not share your enthusiasm at the prospect of telling him, mellon-nín. How many times has father threatened to hand them over to the cooks?" At Lauren's horrified look, he hastened to explain. "My father was only jesting. He may become annoyed with my pets, but he would never harm them."

"That's a relief," Lauren said, stroking her hand unconsciously down the ketral's body. It really was a very gentle creature. She liked the thought that it would continue to live and thrive somewhere else.

Aragorn watched Eldarion playing by himself on the playground. "Lauren, why do you not have other people here? You have rarely shown us what your world is truly like. Even when you bring aspects of your world here for us to see, you do not show us all of it. I do not think that you would have been able to visit a zoo like this and have it be completely empty of all other people."

Biting her lip, Lauren thought about how to reply to that. She finally decided to be truthful. "Honestly, I didn't want to overwhelm any of you. My world is quite different than yours, and I didn't want to expose you to it."

"I would like to see your world as it is," Aragorn insisted. "I want to know what your life is like, and I cannot do that only seeing a piece here and there."

"You didn't like my music," Lauren started to say before Aragorn interrupted her.

"And because I did not like your music, I cannot see your world?" Aragorn asked in confusion. "That does not make sense, Lauren."

"It might if you let me finish my thought," Lauren chided gently. Aragorn gave a wry smile, and gestured for her to continue. "My world is much like my music," Lauren said. "It is very fast-paced, loud and bound to seem harsh to you. I truly only wanted to spare you from being overwhelmed."

"And if I am willing to take the risk?" Aragorn asked. "Will you show us what your life is like?"

Lauren looked at Aragorn, then over to Legolas. "I can, but it's not only your choice to make. From what you've told me, my world will be much more chaotic and difficult to handle for an elf than a human. Are you willing to experience my world, Legolas?"

Legolas had to think about it for a moment. He had been taken aback by much that she had already shown them. And if she had been trying to spare them the worst of her world, he truly did not know if he wanted to see it. But he had never backed down from a challenge in his life, and this seemed to be just another challenge. "I will also take the risk," he said.

"Arwen?" Lauren asked, shifting her attention to the woman in the group.

"I would also like to see your world for myself," she said. "Though we may not wish to bring Eldarion along."

Lauren nodded. "OK, then. Tomorrow, I'll show you what my everyday life is like. I think our time is probably up for tonight."

Aragorn thought about it for a moment. "We seem to have been here for much longer than a normal night. Why have I not awoken yet?"

Lauren shrugged. "The only thing that's different about tonight is that you brought Arwen and Eldarion to join you. Would that have anything to do with it?"

"It might," Aragorn mused. "Arwen has been the one to wake me from this world. Perhaps without her help, I cannot leave?" He looked between Arwen and Lauren as he tried to figure out what was happening.

The thought that the others were now trapped here panicked Lauren. "You have to be able to wake up. Should I try to kick you out like I threatened yesterday?" The last thing she wanted to do was bring harm to the others who were only trying to help her.

"Wait," Arwen said, gesturing for Lauren to remain calm. "I believe I can leave here whenever I wish. Legolas may also have that ability. I will return and wake Aragorn from his sleep." She stood and faced Lauren, who stood along with Legolas and Aragorn. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lauren. I have greatly enjoyed our time together."

"So have I," Lauren said, smiling. Once she got past her initial embarrassment, she had come to feel comfortable with Arwen, as if she had known her for years.

Arwen called Eldarion over from the playground. "It is time to wake up and begin our day, ion-nín. Say farewell to Lauren for now."

"Farewell, Lauren," Eldarion said formally, bowing his head slightly. He turned to look up at Arwen. "Can I come back later and play some more? I like this place."

"We will see," Arwen said noncommittally. She held Eldarion's hand and they faded quickly from sight.

"It looks like she was able to leave as she said," Lauren said with a sigh of relief. "I guess this is goodbye for another night."

"So it would seem," Aragorn said as he and Legolas also began to fade. "And tomorrow, we will wish to see what your life is truly like."

"Then that is what you will see," Lauren said, nodding toward their vanishing forms.

When they had faded away completely, Lauren looked down in surprise at the ketral in her lap. "Well, it seems they left me with some company." She looked around for something to do. "They really should not have given me all that sugar. I'm still hyper. What can I do now?" She gazed down at the ketral. "Any ideas?"

------------------

Aragorn opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. His sleeping chambers were much more crowded than most mornings. Faramir, Eowyn, Gimli, and his chief healer were all looking anxiously at him. Arwen was sitting beside him in the bed looking somewhat bemused by the crowd. The others gave a sigh of relief when he sat up and looked back at them. "What are you doing in my bedchamber?" he asked.

It was Faramir who answered. He and Eowyn had arrived two days ago to make a report on the progress in Ithilien and stayed for a visit. "We could not awaken you, my lord. It was long past time for the morning meal, and we grew worried when Eowyn and I were the only ones at the table."

"Where was Gimli?" Aragorn asked, knowing that Gimli, at least, had not joined them in the dream world. As a dwarf, and no relation to Lauren, there would be no way for him to find his way there.

"Trying to wake that stubborn elf," Gimli growled gesturing toward the doorway to indicate where Legolas' room was.

At that moment, as if on cue, Legolas entered the room with Eldarion in tow. The others relaxed upon seeing them awake and unharmed.

Faramir picked up the tale again as Eldarion jumped up on the bed to sit beside his father and Legolas went to stand beside Gimli. "We were walking down the hallway to your chambers when we heard Gimli's voice coming from Legolas' chambers. He was cursing at the stubbornness of elves. This was not unusual, but there came no reply from Legolas. That struck us as strange, and we entered the chamber to find Gimli doing his best to wake Legolas from his dreams. The fact that he was unable to do so seemed to worry him. We asked him why Legolas would not wake. He told us to ask you. We left Legolas' chambers and made our way here, only to find both you and Arwen asleep and unmoving as well. No matter what we tried, you would not waken. Someone noticed that Eldarion had not been seen this morning, and we had someone check his rooms only to find him in the same condition. I sent for the healer because I was afraid that someone had managed to poison the entire royal family under my very nose. The healer was unable to find signs of injury or poison, however."

Aragorn held up a hand to stop Faramir's recitation. He looked out the window, and saw from the bright daylight that it was no longer morning. "How long were we asleep?"

Faramir shook his head. "It has been several hours since we came looking for you."

Aragorn looked at Arwen. "We may not be able to have you return to visit Lauren. You seem to be my anchor to this world. Without you here to wake me, I do not seem to know when to return."

Arwen shook her head. After meeting Lauren, she did not want to be kept from visiting her. "Nay, we only need to keep a closer watch on the time. As we demonstrated, I can return at will and wake you."

"My lord?" Faramir questioned. It seemed that Aragorn and Arwen knew exactly what was behind their unnatural sleep. "I believe we need to talk." He was not about to let the king keep secrets from him, the Steward, whose responsibility it was to keep the king safe and able to rule his kingdom.

Aragorn waved the healer out of the room and gestured for the others to wait in the adjoining room while he and Arwen dressed for the day. He was not looking forward to this conversation with Faramir. Faramir took his responsibilities and duties to Aragorn far too seriously. Aragorn had a feeling that Faramir would be no happier with this situation than Gimli.


	11. Lauren's house

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. This chapter includes a discussion of two songs by Alanis Morisette, 'So-Called Chaos' and 'This Grudge'. I don't have any rights to the songs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Eleven - Lauren's House

When Aragorn materialized in the dream world, he shivered from the unexpected cold. He looked around in confusion when he saw his surroundings; he was in a sparsely wooded area covered by a layer of deep snow. After summoning Legolas, they both looked around in confusion.

"Did Lauren not say that she dislikes the cold?" Legolas asked.

"I do remember her making such a statement," Aragorn said.

"Then why is there snow on the ground?" Legolas asked. The cold did not bother him as it did humans, but Legolas had been with Aragorn long enough to know that the temperature here would be considered quite cold, though not dangerously so.

"That is something we will have to ask Lauren," Aragorn said. "When we find her, that is."

Legolas noticed the silence around them. The snow absorbed sounds, but it would not have hidden the sounds of Lauren's music. This time, there was no music to follow.

The silence was making Aragorn nervous. Lauren was almost never without her music. Of course, she could be using that small device which allowed her to be the only one to hear her music.

Legolas looked off to his right. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

Aragorn shook his head. "What is it you hear?"

"I am not sure," Legolas said. "It is a faint sound. It does not sound like footsteps, but like something gliding across the snow." He looked around, trying to follow the sound to the source. "There," he said, pointing to an area hidden by a copse of trees and snow covered bushes.

They started toward the sound, only to stop as a figure became visible. It was surely Lauren, but they could not immediately tell. She was clothed in bright blue, very heavily padded clothes from head to toe. Most of her body was covered with her clothes, a knitted cap was on her head, thick gloves were on her hands, and dark 'sunglasses' covered her eyes. There were two long sticks in her hands that she was using to help push herself along on the objects strapped somehow to her feet. She looked up and saw them standing there. Changing direction slightly, she glided across the snow and came to a stop in front of them.

"Hi," she said, reaching up and pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head, pulling off her cap in the same motion.

"What are you wearing?" Aragorn had to ask her. Her attire reminded him of nothing more than the 'spacesuit' that he had seen on the people who walked on the moon.

She looked down at herself, then back up at Aragorn. "It's a snowsuit. It's a heavily insulated form of clothing that people wear to protect them from the cold. I like going cross-country skiing, but I really don't like the cold. So I dress as warmly as possible."

"Skiing?" Legolas questioned.

Lauren took a moment to explain her skis and ski poles, and the basics about how it worked before she noticed Aragorn shivering. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "You must be cold. Why don't we go back to the ski lodge and get warmed up?"

"Ski lodge?" It was Aragorn who asked the question this time. When Lauren motioned off to Aragorn's left, he turned to look and saw a building that had not been there a moment before. He nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. She pushed herself along with her ski poles while he and Legolas walked the short distance to the building.

Lauren reached the building first and turned to wait for them. Her eyes widened as she realized that Legolas was walking on top of the snow.

"How are you doing that?" she asked curiously.

Legolas looked at her in confusion. He and Aragorn were not doing anything unusual.

"All elves have the ability to walk atop the snow," Aragorn replied, knowing what she was referring to. "Yet another thing that set me apart from my family. When I was a child, I became very frustrated with the fact that my feet always sank down into the snow."

"That would be frustrating," Lauren commented. Her eyes were still on Legolas. "I have to admit that that's a pretty neat trick. It would certainly make winter a lot easier if I didn't have to wade through snow drifts." She quickly released her boots from her skis and gestured for them to follow her into the lodge.

Aragorn and Legolas took in every detail of the room that they found themselves in. The room was large, spacious and had high ceilings. There was a large fireplace in the corner with some soft chairs sitting in front of it. Lauren went over to the seating area and sank down onto a sofa. As she did so, her insulated suit, gloves and snow boots disappeared, leaving her in jeans and a sweater. Aragorn and Legolas took seats near her, amazed at the softness of the seats.

"So where is Arwen tonight?" Lauren asked. "I thought she would be joining us."

Aragorn grimaced, shaking his head in response. "No. She will not be able to join us every night. The Steward of Gondor, a friend who takes the safety of the royal family very seriously, recently discovered that I spend my nights here. He became rather concerned when he was unable to wake any of us this morning. It was many hours beyond our normal time before we awoke. He had called the healers to determine if we had all been poisoned."

Lauren winced and ducked her head slightly. "Oops, I suppose we should have been watching the time a bit better. He wasn't too happy to find out the reason you didn't wake up, was he?"

"No," Aragorn answered. "Though we were able to convince him that you were not a witch and meant us no harm, he did not like the idea of the entire royal family venturing here and possibly getting trapped."

A frown crossed Lauren's face and she gestured with her hand as she spoke. "But we demonstrated the fact that Arwen could leave whenever she wanted to, even if you don't seem to have that ability."

"Yes," Aragorn sighed, raising a hand in a placating gesture. "I did point out that fact to Faramir, but he would have none of it. To spare ourselves any more of a lecture, we agreed that I and Legolas would still visit, but Arwen would stay behind to wake me in the morning. I told her that I would summon her if she was needed, despite Faramir's insistence that she not join us."

"It's too bad that she can't join us," Lauren murmured, sinking back into her chair. "I like Arwen."

"She feels the same about you," Aragorn assured her. "This was not a choice she made easily."

Lauren shrugged half-heartedly and was about to reply when she felt a weight on the back of the sofa. She turned as a small warm body came to rest against her shoulder. She reached up and stroked the ketral that was resting its front paws and head on her shoulder. "Hi, Kip. I wondered where you had disappeared to."

"Kip?" Legolas asked in disbelief.

Lauren looked at him with a small smile. "Well, you never told me his name. I had to have something to call him. And he apparently doesn't like the cold. When I decided to go skiing, he vanished."

"It sounds like you believe he has a will of his own here," Aragorn said, his brow furrowing.

"Oh, I know he's not really here," Lauren said. "It's my own mind filling in details of how the animals I have experience with behave in similar situations. I can't say I minded the company, though. It was nice to have someone to talk to." She rubbed its head and it purred in her ear. She laughed and looked at Aragorn and Legolas. "Are you two ready to see my world now?"

"Yes," Aragorn answered readily. He had been wondering about her world for quite some time. It was not enough merely to hear her describe bits and pieces of her life, he wanted to see it for himself.

Legolas did not look as enthusiastic, however. Lauren knew he was intensely curious about her world, but she had worried him with her comments about not wanting to overwhelm them. "I'll ease you into it, don't worry," she said. She stood up and they followed her lead, rising to their own feet. Kip lay on the sofa, watching them, and Lauren stroked him one last time, knowing he would fade with the scenery.

Lauren did not even need to concentrate to change the scenery this time. The territory was so familiar to her that it simply flowed from her mind to take shape around them.

Aragorn and Legolas looked at the two-story house in front of them. Lauren lived in an old brick farmhouse that admittedly needed a little bit of fixing up, but the exterior looked clean and neat. The house was set back off of the road with a line of trees separating her from the road and any neighbors, so they seemed to be in a secluded area.

Legolas looked at the size of the house. "Do you live here alone? It seems rather large for one person."

Lauren shrugged. "It's my refuge, my escape from the claustrophobic feel of the city. I knew it was more room than I needed, and I'll be paying it off for the next thirty years or so, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the house for me. It needs a little fixing up inside, and though I'm not exactly handy when it comes to home repairs, it gives me some physical projects to do. With the stress of my job, it's important to have something totally un-related to work to do in my spare time. Besides, there's a little bit of land included as part of this property, so I can enjoy my own little bit of nature."

"It does seem like a nice place," Aragorn commented. "You said you will be paying for it for thirty years. Is that common?" It seemed like a very long time to be paying for anything.

"Yes," Lauren said. "Most people get money from a bank or lending institution to buy a house, then set up a payment plan to repay the loan. Very few people can afford to buy a home outright. I certainly can't. I make a good living at my job, but I'll never be wealthy working for the government. But I honestly don't know that I'll be living here for the next thirty years. The longest I've lived in any one place before this has been five years. I wanted a place of my own to settle down in, but who knows what the future holds?" She shrugged as she saw the question in their eyes. "If I end up moving somewhere else, I'll just sell the house and use that to pay off the loan. Then I'll start all over again somewhere else."

Aragorn thought her attitude a bit strange, but considering her rather nomadic background, maybe it was not so odd after all.

Lauren gave them a minute or two to look around at the outside of the house and the yard before walking over to the front door. She waved them over to join her. When her keys appeared in her hand, she unlocked the door and the extra deadbolt lock. There were two sets of curious eyes watching as she did this. "Come on in and make yourselves at home," she said. "Mi casa et su casa."

They stepped forward into her living room and looked around in curiosity. Lauren looked in and shook her head in dismay. She hadn't gotten around to cleaning the house lately, and her mind had apparently remembered just how much paper and clutter was lying around. "Wait just a moment," she said. With a thought, the house was much cleaner, all the papers and clutter vanished. "I wish I could take that ability back with me to reality," she commented. "It would save so much time if I could clean the whole house with a thought rather than taking a full day or weekend to get things straightened up." A skittering sound caught her attention and she looked back to Aragorn and Legolas. "Brace yourselves."

Before they could ask what she meant by that comment, a large bundle of fur came galloping into their midst. Lauren braced her legs and kept her balance as a dog used her body to stop its forward momentum. She squatted down and wrapped her arms around the dog, burying her face in the thick fur around its neck. Looking to the side, she laughed softly as she saw an oversize cat stretching to put its paws as high on Legolas' legs as it could reach. "He wants you to pet him," she remarked to Legolas. "That's his way of asking for attention." Legolas reached down and rubbed the ears of the cat that seemed to be trying to climb up his body. Lauren stood up and looked at the men. "I suppose I should introduce you to my own personal zoo. The tiger striped cat is named Mischief, and the dog is named Frosty."

"Mischief?" Legolas asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Trust me, the name fits," Lauren responded wryly.

"What kind of dog is that?" Aragorn asked. "I do not believe I have seen one like him before."

"He's a Siberian Husky," Lauren explained. "I saw him and just fell in love with those beautiful blue eyes of his. He's really a sweet-tempered animal, and you could tell just by looking in his eyes." She looked over to the sofa and grinned. "And in case you missed her, the Himalayan cat on the sofa is Miss Priss. She's the one who really runs this place. I really do hope someone has remembered to come take care of them." The last line was muttered under her breath.

"Miss Priss?" Aragorn asked with a mischievous glint in his eye as he looked at Legolas. Legolas glared back, and Lauren had the feeling that she was definitely missing an in-joke between the two.

Legolas looked at the fluffy cat on the sofa, which was the smallest of the three animals. She could not have weighed more than a few pounds. The other cat was much larger, at least ten or fifteen pounds, and the dog was many times larger. "The little one rules over the others?"

"Oh, yes," Lauren said with a grin. "She's the leader of the group. I've had her for a long time. When I brought in Frosty and Mischief as very young animals, Miss Priss quickly established the fact that this was her home and they would get along fine as long as they didn't cross her."

"Why did you name her that?" Aragorn asked in curiosity.

"Just watch," Lauren said. She walked over and began petting the cat, running her hand down the animal's back. The cat began purring and leaning into her hand, but the moment Lauren stopped petting her and stepped away, Miss Priss turned around and began giving herself a bath. Lauren laughed. "She loves attention, but she always has to clean herself after someone touches her. It's as if she thinks the person got her dirty."

Aragorn chuckled and looked around the room, noticing many unfamiliar things. There was a sofa and a few chairs, a low table in front of the sofa and several bookcases filled to overflowing with books. Those were the items he recognized. There was a storage unit of some kind across from the sofa with a large black box in the middle and several other boxes of various sizes; many of which were connected by long cords of some kind. Several objects that he assumed were for some kind of lighting were scattered around the room, some tall ones on the floor and shorter ones on tables or bookshelves. He walked over to examine one of the tall objects. As he looked closer, he saw a white bulb made of glass in the center. There was no place that he could see to light a wick to provide light. "What is this?" Aragorn asked Lauren.

"That would be a light bulb in a floor lamp," Lauren explained. She walked over and gestured for Aragorn to stand back while she turned a small knob. The light bulb lit up and shone brighter than Aragorn had been expecting. Lauren pointed to the cord at the base of the lamp. "The lamp is powered by electricity, which I'm not even going to attempt to explain. Just know that electricity powers nearly everything in this house." She walked over to her entertainment center. In the living room, this would hold the majority of items of interest to her guests.

She first pointed to the stereo system on top of the unit and explained that it was a larger version of the radio that they had already seen. Legolas quickly sized up the larger speakers flanking the stereo. He had no desire to find out how loud this version could be. Lauren then pointed to her TV. "You know how I explained that the songs on the radio were recorded elsewhere and sent to the radio?" They nodded. "The television serves a similar purpose, but it sends a visual signal as well as an audible one." She picked up her remote and aimed it at the TV. "These remote controls send a signal to the various devices here and tells them what the user wants to do." She pressed the power button and the TV came on with a burst of sound. Aragorn and Legolas both jumped backwards in surprise.

"Sorry," Lauren said, giggling a little. "I should have given you a bit more warning, I guess."

Aragorn squatted down to get on eye-level with the TV and watched the characters move around the screen in amazement. He reached out to touch them, and came into contact with the glass of the screen. "This is fascinating. Does this show what is occurring at other places and times like the palantir?"

"A palantir?" Lauren asked, not familiar with the word.

"It is a device of the Númenoreans," Aragorn explained. "There were seven of them, and they were used to communicate with people at great distances who also held a palantir. They also have the ability to see events taking place elsewhere."

Lauren thought for a minute. "In a way," she hedged. "It sounds like these palantirs were the first long-distance video-telephone network. But a TV shows only what is being sent from certain stations. They are used for entertainment when people send out recordings of shows or movies. It's like theater in your own home. Actors have a script and act out a specified role. People record these performances and send them to TVs to entertain others. They can be a source of news and let you see what is happening in other places of the world, or in your own city. Most stations have a news program at least twice a day." She took another few minutes to explain how a television worked, to the best of her knowledge, anyway. Aragorn and Legolas looked somewhat stunned by the time she finished.

"So you can see what is happening in other parts of the world?" Aragorn reiterated, trying to compare it to a palantir in his mind.

"As long as someone is there and transmitting a signal that you can pick up, yes," Lauren said. "The news shows tend to show the latest and what they consider most important developments. There won't be a news story on every place in the world every night. Most of what is reported on the news is depressing, actually. They tend to highlight wars, battles, conflicts, corrupt politicians, scandals, murders, crimes, and other depressing subjects. Every now and then there will be an uplifting story on a medical miracle or a lost person being found alive and well, but those stories are very rare."

Legolas and Aragorn exchanged a glance. They were finally getting to see part of Lauren's world, and already it did not seem like a pleasant place. Aragorn was beginning to see why she had not wanted to show them her world. It was a sad thought that in twenty thousand years, the race of man had not outgrown its violent nature.

Aragorn shook his head and looked back to the TV. "It is still amazing that this box connects you to the world in such a way."

Legolas just shook his head and looked away. He did not like the thought of a television at all. If it brought only depressing news into people's homes, he could see no need for such a thing.

Lauren aimed the remote at the TV and turned it off. She had a feeling that if she didn't, Aragorn would end up parked on the couch watching TV like most men she had met. Aragorn jumped a little and looked back at her, then at the device in her hand. "And you say that small device controls the television?" he asked as he stood and examined the remote.

"Yes," she said, handing it over. She pointed to the other remotes near the sofa. There was one for the stereo, one for the VCR, the DVD player, and for the satellite system. She explained briefly what each one was for.

"Do you ever get them confused?" Legolas asked, looking at the many similar looking remotes.

"All the time," Lauren confessed. "You don't know how many times I've tried to control the TV with the stereo remote or vice versa. I realize my mistake very quickly when it doesn't work. I should probably get things set up on universal remote, but those don't always work like they should." She looked around the room, trying to find something new to show them. Her eyes fell on the phone sitting beside the sofa. "Oh, you guys will probably like this one." She picked up the phone to show them. "This is called a telephone. With it, you can talk to anyone else who has a phone, and there are very few people who don't have one. You just have to know the person's associated phone number, punch in the number on these buttons, and you are connected with that person. I couldn't imagine living without a phone, honestly. I haven't lived near my parents for quite some time, but with this, I can talk to them as often as I like." She reached into her purse, which was sitting on the floor near the sofa, and pulled out her cell phone. "There are also smaller versions of these devices that people can take with them wherever they go." She handed it over to Aragorn and gazed wistfully at it. "If only I could actually call someone with that." A chuckle escaped her at the thought. "I can just imagine someone's reaction if they got a call from me while I'm in a coma. They'd surely think someone was playing a trick on them."

Aragorn was studying the small device in his hand. Lauren reached over and flipped it open to show him the buttons. "And with this, you can talk to other people no matter where they might be?"

"As long as they have a cell phone and it's turned on, yeah," Lauren said. She decided not to try to explain cell phone towers and areas of good reception.

Aragorn looked at Legolas. "Can you imagine how much easier things would have been if we had had devices like this during the war? We could have coordinated our efforts with Frodo and Sam and been sure that they were not dead or captured rather than simply trusting that we were not marching to our deaths for no reason."

Lauren knew he was perfectly serious with his comments, but a sudden image burst into her mind, doubling her over with laughter. All she could think of was a small version of a human with hairy feet and pointed ears standing in the fires of Mount Doom with a cell phone pressed to his ear, just like in the Verizon phone commercials, saying 'Can you hear me now? Good.'

Aragorn and Legolas looked at her worriedly, seemingly afraid that she was cracking up. That just made her laugh all the harder. "Sorry," she gasped out. "I just had a really funny thought flash through my mind."

"Can you share it with us?" Aragorn asked in amusement. He did not know what she found so funny, but he was pleased to hear her laugh like that.

"I could, but it kind of deals with a reference that you wouldn't understand." She took a deep breath and got hold of herself. "I will admit that rapid communication is essential in today's military. They have secure phones that enable them to receive and send orders quickly. But things seem to have worked out for the best for you as it was. I don't think you could have changed one thing without other things also changing, perhaps for the worse. Besides, cell phones can be as much of an annoyance as they are a blessing. You don't know how annoying it can be to be out with someone and have them take a call in the middle of a conversation with you. Talk about feeling left out. And it's almost impossible to walk down the street anymore without seeing several people talking on their phones as they walk, drive, shop, or anything else."

Legolas looked as if he were not too thrilled with the idea of cell phones, while Aragorn seemed to love the idea of instant communication. Legolas heard a ticking sound in the otherwise quiet room and looked up to find the source. He saw her clock on the wall. Lauren noticed where his gaze had gone, and not knowing if clocks existed in Middle-earth, explained that it was a device for telling time. She pointed to the numbers glowing on the VCR and said that that was another way to see the time. Holding up her arm, she pointed out the watch on her wrist, saying that it was the first thing she put on in the morning, even before getting dressed for the day.

"I get a little panicked if I don't have a way of knowing what time it is," Lauren said a little self-consciously. "My schedule is usually so packed that I'm afraid I'll miss something if I lose track of time. I think I actually have a clock of some kind in every room but the bathrooms."

Aragorn shrugged. "I have advisors to remind me of important meetings. I do not often forget, but they are there to remind me if I do."

"Well, I have only myself," Lauren pointed out. "So I try to make sure I have every device available to help me keep track of my schedule."

She gestured for them to follow her into the kitchen. The living room was only the beginning of the tour. She showed them the oven, stove, refrigerator and the microwave, explaining what each one was for. They seemed quite impressed that someone could prepare food without needing a fire to cook it with. Legolas looked inside the refrigerator and freezer and was amazed at how cold the temperature was. "What are all these boxes?" he asked as he looked in the freezer.

Lauren looked in to see what he was referring to. "Those are ready made meals called TV dinners," she explained. "All the cooking is already done. The only thing I have to do to get it ready to eat is put it in the microwave for a few minutes to heat it up."

"Ready made meals?" Aragorn was astonished at the thought. "You do not cook your own meals?"

"When I have company, sure, I cook," Lauren said. "I actually like cooking, but it's difficult to cook for just one person. It's much more convenient to just toss something in the microwave. I don't often have the time or energy to spend much time preparing my meals. TV dinners aren't the healthiest or tastiest choice, but they'll do in a pinch."

Legolas was busy looking through her cupboards, and found her candy stash. He gave her a quizzical expression, and she grinned back at him. "Go ahead and have some. But toss me a peanut butter cup, if you would, please." Since that was one of the candies that she had introduced them to yesterday, Legolas knew which one she wanted, and he tossed one to her. They each took a piece of candy and munched on it as Lauren moved to the sink.

"This is one of the great advances of the modern age," she said. "Indoor plumbing." She turned the handle, and water came pouring out of the faucet.

Aragorn and Legolas looked quite impressed with this. "No more hauling water out of the well," Aragorn remarked.

"No, not in most places," Lauren agreed. "And even better is the hot water heater." She turned on the hot water and played with the temperature until the water was hot, but not too hot. "Test it," she said to them. They each stuck their hand under the flow of water and looked back at Lauren.

"How is it being heated?" Aragorn asked, examining the area surrounding the sink.

"Well, there's a device called a hot water heater that takes cold water, heats it, then pumps it into the pipes when it is needed. This way, no one has to wash up with cold water or heat water using any other method before using it," Lauren explained.

"You can take a hot bath without having to first take the time to heat the water?" Legolas asked, quite impressed with the very thought of such a thing. That was one invention he could certainly appreciate.

"Yeah," Lauren said. "Come on, I'll show you." She led them to the bathroom next. It was not large, so they were somewhat crowded, but Lauren pulled back the shower curtain and showed them the bathtub with the hot and cold faucets. "If you want a hot bath, you just put the plug in the drain and fill it with hot water," she said. "You have to watch the temperature closely to make sure you don't get it too hot, though."

"What is that?" Aragorn asked, pointing to the shower head.

"That enables people to wash while standing up," Lauren explained. "The water is pumped up to the shower head to rain down on the person standing below it. It's actually much more efficient and saves water over taking a bath. Not to mention being a bit more sanitary."

Aragorn was now looking at the array of bottles stored below the shower head. "And these?" he asked.

"Those are shower gels, which is a form of soap for washing up, shampoo and conditioner for washing your hair, and an in-shower moisturizer for keeping the skin from getting overly dry."

Looking at the large number of bottles arrayed there, Aragorn looked back in surprise at Legolas. "She seems even more concerned with keeping clean than you."

"Indeed," Legolas said, his lips quirking with humor. "I begin to wonder if she _is_ related to you. You never seemed to be concerned with your personal cleanliness at all."

"Prissy elf," Aragorn muttered.

"Filthy human," Legolas retorted easily.

Lauren couldn't help laughing at their banter. These comments had the feel of a very long running joke between them. She finally figured out why Aragorn found the name of her cat so amusing. She felt she had to defend herself though. "It may look like I have a lot of bottles in there, but I don't use them all in every shower. There are a variety of different scents in the shower gels. I choose whichever one I am in the mood for that day. I'm pretty sure my shower regimen is nothing unusual when compared to other women. I don't think men in general take nearly as much time or effort as women, though."

Aragorn nodded and looked around. His eyes caught on the toilet and he looked up at her in question.

"It's a flush toilet," Lauren explained. "Another thing I could not live without. I couldn't imagine having to deal with outhouses or chamber pots."

Lauren's comments made it clear what the toilet was used for, so they moved on to other things. Legolas had found her medicine cabinet and was staring at the many bottles, tubes and other objects stored inside. Lauren had to take a few minutes and describe which items were cosmetics, which were for ailments like headaches, upset stomachs and the like. Aragorn found these of much more interest than the cosmetics. He wanted to know what herbs were in the pills and Lauren explained that the pills were made up of chemicals, not usually from any particular herb, though many did have their origins in plants and herbs. As she was discussing the medicines with Aragorn, she decided that before she woke up, she would have to show Aragorn the state of modern medicine. She had to point out her facial wash, toothbrush and toothpaste, and hear more comments about her habits of cleanliness.

They finally ran out of things to question her about in the medicine cabinet, and Lauren moved on with the tour. She showed them the utility room briefly and pointed out the clothes washer and dryer.

"It seems that your life is one of ease," Aragorn said. "You do not have to cook your own meals, you have machines to wash your dishes and your clothes, and remote controls to control your forms of entertainment. What work do you have to do in your home?"

"I'm still responsible for cleaning the place, and keeping it in good repair," Lauren said. "That's more of a job than you might think. And you're hardly one to talk. You both grew up in a life of privilege. Did you ever have any household chores when you were young? And by household I mean cooking, laundry, cleaning, taking out the trash or even tending to the grounds?"

They looked at each other, then back to her. "No," Legolas admitted with a strange look at Lauren. She seemed to think that he and Aragorn had lived their childhoods with no responsibilities, something which could not be further from the truth. "Both of us were raised as warriors. From an early age we were taught to protect our homes and people."

"OK, yeah, that's important, I'll admit." Lauren deflated a bit, realizing that yes, their lives were likely much more difficult than her life could ever be. She had many modern conveniences and luxuries that had not been available to Aragorn and Legolas. However, she did not want them to think she did nothing but lounge around the house all day and eat candy. "But while my life is probably pretty easy compared to yours, please don't think that I live a life of ease. I have so little time of my own that it's rare for me to be able to keep up with everything that needs to be done here. This house is rather old, and there are several rooms that still need a lot of work. I'm doing what I can to fix it up, but I don't have time to do as much as I'd like."

"What is it that takes up all your time?" Aragorn asked. Lauren's comments had him curious. Honestly, he did think her life was much easier than he or anyone of his world could imagine, and he wondered what it was about her life that she found so time-consuming and difficult.

"Work," Lauren answered shortly. She led them into her office and sat behind the desk, turning the computer on. "This is called a computer," she said. "I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I have several forms of entertainment available to me through this device. Games, stories, and a very fast form of communication are all here at my fingertips. I told you that I'm a computer programmer. What that means is that I work on a computer all day long. I have yet to meet a programmer who works a normal forty-hour a week job, and I'm no exception to that. I work long hours, hammering away at problems, coding and de-bugging code. I have numerous projects going at any one time and people always wanting to know the status of their particular project. I have deadlines and meetings and so much stress at work that relaxation is becoming a foreign concept." Aragorn could see her growing tenser with each word.

As she spoke, the radio on her desk came on, and 'So-Called Chaos' by Alanis Morissette began playing. Lauren relaxed back into her chair as she listened. "And as you can see, I'm not the only one with problems like those."

At her words, Aragorn and Legolas listened to the words of the song. The words did deal with much the same topics that Lauren had just been complaining about; deadlines, meetings, and the many responsibilities faced by people in the workplace here. Aragorn's eyebrows rose when he heard a line about wanting to run naked through the streets. With all of the responsibilities he had faced throughout his life, that was not an impulse he had ever had.

As the song continued, Lauren commented. "I've often felt that way. Oh, not that I want to go running naked through the streets, but that I wish I could just fly away from it all. I guess I found a way after all, though I can't say much for the method." She sighed and looked into the worried expressions of her friends. "I don't want you two to get the wrong impression. I do like my job, most of the time. I love finding the solution to a problem and that feeling of euphoria when a stubborn program finally runs flawlessly. I just wish there weren't all this other stuff thrown in as part of the package. Oh well, I really shouldn't complain. All in all, I have a pretty good life. I just don't have as much free time as I might like." She shook away the thought and motioned for them to come closer. Pulling up some of the games on her computer, she showed them some of the fun things that she could do on her computer.

They quickly grew bored with the computer, so Lauren shut it down and completed the tour, taking them upstairs and showing them the guest bedroom, the upstairs bathroom and the extra room that held the animal's beds, toys and other objects, finishing in her bedroom.

They roamed around her room, looking at the pictures of friends and family that she had placed around the room. "Is this your family?" Aragorn asked, picking up a picture frame. Legolas came over to look as Lauren answered yes. Legolas could see that her father had a strong resemblance to Aragorn. Many of their facial features were similar, though her father had very short brown hair shot through with grey and green eyes. The man who must surely be her older brother also had brown hair and green eyes, while her younger brother had blond hair and brown eyes, like their mother.

Lauren watched them examine her family photo. "I told you I was the only one in my family with Aragorn's coloring. My father got his coloring from his mother. I took after his father."

"You have a lovely family," Aragorn commented, easily finding familiar features in all of them, except for her mother, of course.

"Thank you," Lauren said with a smile. "I happen to like them."

Aragorn put the picture down, and Legolas picked up another, staring at it in confusion. The picture showed Lauren and about five other people dressed up in what was apparently formal attire, but the head of one of the people was cut out of the picture. "Lauren, where is this man's head?"

Lauren flushed slightly. "I cut it out. I didn't want to see him, but it was a good picture of me and the others, so I just removed his face."

"Why would you do that?" Aragorn asked, seeing that the man in the photo had an arm draped around Lauren's waist.

"He's my ex," Lauren said. At their blank looks, she went on to explain. "My ex-boyfriend. We dated for a couple of years. We broke up, and I didn't want anything else to do with him."

Aragorn frowned at the bitter tone of her voice. She was obviously still hurting from something that had happened between them, but trying to hide it. "Why are you no longer together?" he asked.

She frowned at him. "Because every word from his mouth was a lie." She crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

Aragorn's brows rose, and he glanced at Legolas, who was looking a bit concerned. "How so?"

Her frown deepened. She didn't normally talk about this with anyone. She knew that if she made it clear that she did not want to discuss it, Aragorn and Legolas would let it drop out of consideration for her feelings. But she suddenly realized that she didn't mind talking about it. It wasn't as if she was ever going to meet Aragorn and Legolas in reality, and besides, she felt comfortable talking with them. She didn't worry that they would judge her or reveal her secrets. She trusted them, strange a thought as that was. Maybe it would even help her to discuss it, to say out loud what she very rarely did. She had held onto this for far too long as it was. It was time to talk about it, to try to let it go.

"He…" she paused, trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. "Oh, this is going to be hard. I've only told a couple of my closest friends why we broke up. I never even told my parents the real reason."

"Why not?" Legolas asked softly, trying to put her more at ease.

"Because I was ashamed," she said softly, sinking down to sit on the edge of her bed.

"Why would you be ashamed?" Aragorn asked gently, sitting down beside her as Legolas sat on her other side.

"I trusted him," she explained, looking at the floor. "I never even saw what a lying snake he was."

"What did he lie about?" Aragorn asked, trying to get to the heart of the matter.

"He lied when he said he loved me," she whispered. She straightened her back and spoke in a louder voice. She was determined to get the full tale out now and started in on her story. "We met in graduate school. Both of us were working on getting our computer programming degrees and we seemed to have a lot in common. We started hanging out as friends, then it developed into something more. I wasn't looking for a forever relationship at that time, because in school, your future is pretty uncertain. As a student, you're only planning on spending a few years there, then getting a job and moving away. I wasn't looking for a long-term relationship, I really wasn't. But with him, I began to hope. I thought he could be the one that I was supposed to spend my life with. I had never given my heart to anyone before, but with him, I did. We were a couple for quite awhile. Long enough for me to start thinking he might ask me to marry him. Well, hoping, anyway. I was so stupid, I never even noticed a few details that I really should have paid attention to." She shook her head at her own stupidity as she stopped speaking.

"What do you think you should have noticed?" Legolas asked. He had seen the self-deprecating look in her eyes, and wanted to help take that look away from her.

Looking back up at Legolas, Lauren answered matter-of-factly. "The fact that every time he traveled home to visit his family, he never invited me to go with him. And he rarely liked coming home to visit my family." She sighed. "It just never occurred to me that there was a reason he didn't want me to meet his family. I found out one night though when I went over to his apartment to see him. It was a spur of the moment urge. We didn't have plans, and he certainly wasn't expecting me to show up."

"What happened?" Aragorn asked, beginning to see where her story might be going.

"A woman answered his door. I was startled, but I knew he had a sister, so I introduced myself as a friend and asked who she was. She told me she was his fiancée, just up to visit for a few days. They had been engaged for years, and were just waiting for him to finish school before they got married."

There was a look of anger on Aragorn's and Legolas' faces. Lauren just nodded and continued her story, now that the worst was out. "I made some excuse and left before I had to see him. That creep had just been using me to keep himself company while he was away at school. He had always intended to marry his high-school sweetheart. I confronted him a few days later and we had it out. He didn't think he had done anything wrong. Since he had never promised me forever, he didn't think he was cheating on me. I pointed out that he had promised the other woman forever, so he was cheating on her. He actually had the nerve to tell me that that was her problem, and he didn't see why I was so mad about it. I hauled back and decked him at that point. My father and brother taught me the proper way to throw a punch, so I made sure it hurt. Let him explain to her why he had a black eye." Lauren had gotten worked up during the telling, and had to stop to take a deep breath and calm herself down. "I guess he's pretty lucky that I don't carry weapons around like you two do," she finally said wryly.

Aragorn was glad to see a flash of her usual humor, but was still horrified by her tale. If it had been possible, he would have hunted this man down and had a serious talk with him about the proper way to treat a lady. The very thought that someone had treated his granddaughter, his friend in that manner enraged him.

Lauren looked at the expression on his face. "And that is exactly why I didn't tell my family. Can you imagine how my father would have felt if he knew someone had hurt his little girl like that? No, for their sakes, I couldn't tell my family. The last thing I needed was for one of them to hunt him down and do something we might all regret. You see, he was too embarrassed to bring charges of assault against me, but if one of my brothers had punched him, they might have been facing legal charges. I couldn't let that happen, so I dealt with it myself."

"What did you do then?" Legolas asked.

"What was there to do?" Lauren shrugged. "I cried and moved on. This happened shortly before graduation, so I just avoided him until graduation, got a job and moved very far away. I suppose I'm glad it happened when it did. It would have been much worse if I had tried to get a job close to him, thinking that we had a future together. This way, I was free to start my life fresh."

"And did you?" Aragorn asked. "You still seem very upset by this." He was concerned that in many ways, she still lived with the hurt and shame she felt.

"Wouldn't you be?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. She sighed. "I've tried to move on, but it's difficult. I moved around so much in my life that I don't easily trust new people. I trusted him with my heart, and look what happened. It's taking time to forgive him for that. I still don't trust men easily. I have several male friends, but if they ever indicate they might want to be something more, I pull away. I'm always trying to figure out their motives, what they're hiding. I just can't bring myself to take the chance and trust any man like that again." Her expression darkened as she spoke, putting into words something she had not thought through so clearly before.

Aragorn frowned. "You trust us, do you not?"

"Of course," Lauren answered instantly, her expression clearing. "But you two are different."

"How so?" Aragorn asked, a contemplative look in his eyes as he watched her.

Lauren's face showed her incredulity. "How are you not different than anyone I've ever met?" She decided she should try to explain why she trusted them so easily. "OK, I can't explain it, but I just felt this connection to you the moment we met," she said to Aragorn. "I think it's the family thing. But another reason that I can trust you is that I never saw either of you as a romantic prospect."

"You didn't?" Aragorn asked, looking at Legolas and remembering her initial reaction to seeing the elf.

"No, I didn't," she said firmly. "I'll readily admit to being attracted to Legolas, I don't see how I could avoid that, but no, I never thought anything would come of it."

Legolas turned slightly pink at her frank admission. "Why not?" he asked in curiosity.

She looked sideways at him. "Several reasons. First, I'd have to be insane to fall in love with someone I met in a dream and will never meet in reality. You'd hardly want me pining after a dream once I wake up, I hope."

Legolas shook his head. "No, I would not wish that on anyone. But you did suggest that I come to find you in your time. As an immortal, that is a possibility."

Lauren shook her head. She couldn't deny the fact that her heart leapt a little at the thought of actually getting to meet Legolas in person, but she couldn't let him think she had meant the suggestion seriously. "That brings me to my second point. You're way too old for me."

Aragorn burst out laughing at her comment. That was something he had never thought to hear her say.

Lauren turned slightly pink herself. "That didn't come out right. What I meant was that as a mortal, I could never get romantically involved with an immortal being. It wouldn't be fair to the immortal, setting him up to lose the one he loved, and quite honestly, I want someone I can grow old with. You see, immortals don't exist in my world. People would notice if someone didn't seem to age over a few decades. An immortal would have to move from place to place every so often to keep people from being suspicious. I wouldn't want to have to live that kind of life."

"You seem to have put a lot of thought into this," Aragorn said, thinking that her thoughts belied her statement that she had never thought of a future for her and Legolas.

"Well, immortality may not exist in reality, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in fantasy," Lauren said. "There was a television show a while back that had an immortal human as the main character. He was very good looking, by the way. He was one of a very few immortals that lived their lives in secrecy. He fell in love with several mortal women over the centuries, and inevitably had to watch them die. I often wondered why he kept putting himself in that position. So, I've had a long time to think about the topic. I thought at the time that if immortals were real and the man I loved revealed a secret like that, I'd be able to tell him that it didn't matter, that love would conquer all. I've re-thought things a bit since then. I'm not so naïve anymore."

Aragorn thought it a bit sad that she no longer thought love was the most important thing in a relationship. He said as much.

"I sometimes wish I still did believe that. I grew up reading fairy tales where love would guarantee a happy ending. Then I saw what the real world was like. You don't know how many people who thought they would spend their whole lives together end up only being with that person for a few years. So many marriages end in divorce that some people go into a marriage thinking that if it doesn't work out, they can just get a divorce. They see it as an escape route if things don't turn out like they want. I think some people just give up too easily. No one works at staying together anymore. I've come to believe that the people in my society are in love with the idea of love but don't want to put in the time and effort to make it work."

"Divorce?" Aragorn asked. "It sounds like you are saying that people do not marry for life anymore." The very thought confused him. Wasn't that what marriage was, the pledging to spend the rest of your life with one person?

"That's what it seems like at times," she said before shaking her head. "I know that the forever type of love does still exist, all I have to do is look at my parents to know that. But they almost seem to be the exception rather than the rule. I still hope for the happily ever after ending, but I'm beginning to think it's just not in the cards for me."

"You are letting this man destroy your ability to trust," Legolas said. "If you let him control your life, you will never find the 'happy ending' you wish for. You are the only one who can change the way you approach life and love. You must take a chance and let others close, or you will spend the rest of your life alone." He spoke earnestly, trying to get Lauren to see that she had put a wall up to protect herself and keep out all others. Such a wall might protect her, but if none could scale that wall, she would live a very lonely life, and he did not wish such a life for her.

"I know," Lauren sighed. "But I'm finding it a bit hard to forgive him and open myself up to that kind of pain again."

Another song by Alanis Morissette called 'This Grudge' drifted from the radio on her bedside table. Lauren listened to the lyrics, then sank back to lie on her bed and think.

Aragorn had noticed how in this world, Lauren's music was often a clue to what emotions and thoughts were going through her head. He had learned early on to pay attention to what the songs were saying. This song dealt with a woman who had been hurt in a relationship, and had held on to the hatred and pain for a very long time. The woman had apparently decided that it was time to lay the grudge to rest, that the only one being hurt by it was her, and it was time to free herself of this load of pain she had carried for so long and forgive the both of them. Aragorn kept quiet and allowed Lauren to realize what she was telling herself with the choice of songs.

Lauren lay still for a long moment, staring up at her bedroom ceiling. Aragorn and Legolas sat still, not knowing what else to say. "OK, you win," she said softly. "You're right," she said as she sat up between them once more. "I can't let this one bad experience ruin my ability to trust. I may be missing out on the love of my life by not taking any chances. It's just too bad guys like you two don't seem to exist any more." She stood up, followed by Aragorn and Legolas. "Enough of this morose topic. I didn't bring you both here to bring you down with my problems." In a surprising and impromptu movement, Lauren reached over and hugged Aragorn. "Thank you," she whispered to him.

Aragorn hugged her back. "You're welcome." He wished he could take away her pain with a hug as he did whenever Eldarion scraped his knee and came to him for comfort. He stroked her hair gently and let his hands fall away as she drew back.

She glanced sideways at Legolas, seeming to want to hug him as well, but feeling a bit more uncomfortable without the family tie between them. "Oh, why not," she muttered to herself and hugged him before she could talk herself out of it. "Thank you for being my friend," she said to him. "And for telling me the truth about myself."

Legolas smiled at Aragorn over the top of her head as he returned her hug. "Thank you for trusting us enough to call us friends. And I am of the firm opinion that friends must always tell each other the truth. Even when they may not want to hear it."

Aragorn smiled back at Legolas. He could remember the many times Legolas had given him the kick he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself during their friendship. Legolas was always good at that. Aragorn was pleased that Lauren felt comfortable enough with the both of them to hug them. This was the first time she had ever tried to touch either of them in affection. He chose to take it as a good sign that she was trying to let go of the past that haunted her.

Lauren pulled away from Legolas' arms. "OK, now it's really time to find something else to do. You guys have seen the whole house. Do you want to explore here a little more or go find something new to see?"

Aragorn and Legolas looked at each other. "I think I would like to see more of your world than just your house," Aragorn answered.

"Very well, then, we'll head out and do some more exploring," Lauren said brightly. She turned and walked out of the room, leaving them to follow.


	12. Going for a Drive

Chapter Twelve - Going for a Drive 

Before leaving the house, Lauren stopped by her coat closet, and Legolas smiled as he looked inside. "Aragorn, it seems that your granddaughter has inherited something of your taste in clothes."

Aragorn frowned, not understanding Legolas' comment. Lauren had a vastly different taste in clothing than he did. When Lauren turned around with a black leather jacket in hand, his confusion vanished.

"She must have at least four similar coats in there," Legolas said with a quick grin at her. "Why would you need five leather coats?"

"I wear different coats at different times of the year," Lauren said. "Some are warmer than others, and you can't go wrong with a tailored black leather jacket. And please don't disparage my coats, I happen to like them, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise."

Legolas looked over at Aragorn. "The two of you are so alike in some respects that it is unbelievable." He looked back to Lauren. "I have yet to convince Aragorn to throw out that old leather Ranger's coat that he has had for decades. Arwen has also been trying to convince him that he no longer needs it."

Lauren grinned impishly. "If I had a coat that was as old or as ratty as you seem to imply, I'd go out and buy a nice new leather coat." Aragorn shot her a look of faux betrayal. "What?" she asked. "I didn't say you had to throw the other one away, just retire it to the back of your closet. You're a king, you should get a leather coat that better fits your status. You can wear the other one on a hunting trip with Legolas or something."

Aragorn thought for a moment. "You may have a point."

Legolas looked at him in disbelief. "That was all it took to convince you not to wear that old coat of yours?"

"Lauren did not suggest that I throw the other one away," Aragorn said, winking at Lauren. "She understands the value of that coat."

Legolas just shook his head, and Lauren took advantage of the lull in the conversation to lead them out the back door. Frosty came with them, and Lauren attached the long nylon cord staked in the center of the yard to his collar. Legolas watched this with concern. "You tie him down when you leave?"

"It's the law around here," Lauren said. "All dogs have to be on leashes or ropes staked to the ground. I give him a very long cord so he has plenty of room to roam. And he has a doghouse to take shelter in if the weather is less than ideal. I wish I didn't have to leave him out here as long as I do, but there's no other way to do this with my schedule. He seems content with the setup as long as I give him plenty of attention when I'm home." She scratched the dog behind the ears and whispered, "See you later, baby. Be a good boy while I'm gone." Then she led Aragorn and Legolas to her car.

They stared at it in bemusement, not knowing what the object was. Lauren stared at her car in dismay for another reason entirely. She walked over and let her hand trail over the hood of the vehicle.

Aragorn was beginning to be able to pick up on her moods, and knew that she had taken another downturn. "What is it?" he asked in concern, moving to stand beside her.

She turned back to look at them. "This is the car I wrecked. It won't look like this anymore. In fact, I'm positive it's a crumpled mess of metal now." She looked back at the car with a sense of melancholy. "Well, it served me well for eight years. That's not a bad amount of time for a car. Goodbye, my trusty steed," she said softly.

Aragorn and Legolas stood by uncomfortably. When she was so forcefully reminded of her accident, they did not know what to say.

She shook off the melancholy and looked back at them. "Well, after eight years, it was probably about time to get a new car, anyway." She looked back at the car. "I can't quite bring myself to get behind the wheel of this car again. What should I drive instead?" A grin crossed her face. "Well, why not?" The car shifted in front of their eyes from a dark blue four-door sedan to a sleek red convertible.

Aragorn and Legolas stared at the car in fascination. Lauren opened the door and took a few minutes to explain what a car was, what it was used for, and a brief explanation of the controls and features of the car. After the explanation, she gestured for them to take a seat. Aragorn took the front passenger seat and Legolas took a seat in the back. Legolas looked more than a little uneasy at getting into the vehicle.

"Buckle up," Lauren said. When they looked blankly at her, she buckled her seatbelt to show them what she meant. "I don't drive people around if they don't fasten their seatbelts."

"I do not enjoy being restrained," Legolas said, a sour expression on his face as he stared at the belt Lauren wished him to fasten around himself.

Lauren shot him an exasperated look. "This is a safety measure, nothing else. My seatbelt is probably about the only reason I wasn't instantly killed in that accident. If you have a car moving at fifty or sixty miles an hour and it comes to a sudden stop, the people and objects inside the car tend to keep moving forward. If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt, I probably would have been thrown straight through the windshield. Not many people survive that. As I said before, this may be a dream world, but I'm not taking chances with either of your lives. For my own peace of mind, please put on the seatbelt."

Lauren seemed to feel so strongly about the subject that Legolas could not refuse her request. But it struck him that this was not a good idea. If this vehicle was so dangerous, why were they using it? He asked Lauren that very question as he buckled himself into the car.

"Convenience," Lauren said. "Yes, cars can be dangerous, but they're also about the easiest way to get around. I like horseback riding, but I couldn't imagine trying to use a horse as my main means of transportation. Cars are much faster, and quite a bit more comfortable. You have a roof over your head when it rains, heaters when the temperature is cold, and air conditioning to cool off in the middle of summer."

Aragorn looked impressed when she mentioned heaters. There had been many times in his life when he would have appreciated shelter from the elements in his travels.

"But this vehicle has no roof," Legolas said in confusion.

"It does, it's just not up at the moment." Lauren took a few minutes to explain the concept of a convertible. She put the key into the ignition and watched her guest's reactions as she started the car. They both jumped, which was the reaction she had been expecting. Part of the reason she had been so forceful about the seatbelt issue was to keep them from jumping out of the car when they heard the engine.

"What is that sound?" Legolas asked, looking around frantically for an enemy on the attack.

"That's the engine," Lauren explained. "It's supposed to sound like that. It means the car is turned on and ready to go."

Somehow, Legolas did not look reassured. He turned his head as an unusual scent caught his attention. "What is that I smell?" he asked. "It is like nothing I have experience with. It is very unnatural."

Lauren sniffed the air, and then understood. "That would be exhaust from the car. The engine burns a fuel and gives off a somewhat toxic byproduct through the exhaust pipes."

Aragorn was also frowning now. "Toxic?"

"We're fine as long as we're out in the open," Lauren reassured them. "But you never want to leave the engine running in a garage or enclosed space. That can kill someone." She tilted her head in thought. "Though, air pollution is quite a problem in cities where there is a lot of vehicular traffic. Scientists are working on creating vehicles that don't pollute the atmosphere, but they're not exactly a common thing, yet."

"Humans knowingly put toxins into the air they breathe?" Legolas asked in bewilderment.

"The air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we live in," Lauren commented. "Our environment is in a bit of a mess from the way humans have lived for the last century or so. Again, scientists and others are studying the problem, trying to figure out how to fix it, but until then, we kind of have to take what we've got. I wish people had known back then what would happen as a result of their actions. But then again, they may not have cared. So many times, profit becomes the deciding factor. Money is a powerful motivator."

They both stared at her in amazement that anyone could knowingly violate and poison the world they had to live in. Aragorn said what they were both thinking.

Lauren smiled sadly. "When so many people poison their own bodies with alcohol, drugs and cigarette smoke, it's not really that hard to believe. I think humanity is a very short-sighted race, though we are trying to get better in that respect."

"What drugs, and what is cigarette smoke?" Legolas asked, caught on her comments about people poisoning themselves.

Lauren took a moment to try to explain about illegal drugs, why people took them, and what they ended up doing to themselves. Aragorn and Legolas were properly horrified, and Lauren had to admit that she shared their feelings. Then she explained what cigarettes were, and what damage people did to themselves by smoking.

Legolas looked at Aragorn. "When we get back to Minas Tirith, I will throw your pipe away and tell Arwen what Lauren has told us. I always knew smoking that pipe could not possibly be good for you."

Lauren looked to the passenger seat as well. "You smoke? It's really not a good habit to get into, Aragorn. It can have all kinds of horrible consequences for you and anyone around you. I'd listen to Legolas and quit before you have to start dealing with any of those consequences."

Aragorn looked back and forth between the two. "I will take your suggestions under advisement. But Lauren, what I smoke is pure pipeweed. There are none of the chemicals or toxins that you mentioned added to it."

Nodding, Lauren granted him that much. "Fine, I have no idea what pipeweed is, but it's still a nasty habit, and you should quit while you can. It can't be healthy."

With a nod in return, Aragorn agreed to think about it, but made no promises. "May we go elsewhere now? There is much more of your world I would like to see."

"Of course, I just need to figure out where we're heading. I don't really want to take you to where I work. I spend enough time there, and it's not all that interesting. I just sit in a little room all day in front of a computer. That's kind of boring to show people." She paused for a moment. "I suppose we could do some shopping. I think you two would find a grocery store quite interesting." She nodded, her mind made up. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she shifted the car into reverse and then turned around in her seat to look behind them as she backed the car up. A quick movement from Aragorn caught her attention. Without taking her eyes off of the area behind the car, she said, "If you need something to hold onto at any time, there are handles on the doors you can use." Before she turned back around to face the front, she saw Legolas' face reflect his discomfort at her comment. She ignored it and applied the brakes before smoothly shifting into drive.

As she drove down the driveway, she reached down and turned on the radio. She glanced apologetically back at Legolas in the rearview mirror. "I'm sorry about the music, but I really need it when I'm driving. I don't do well with silence, as you've probably already noticed."

Legolas watched her tap her fingers against the steering wheel to the music. "Should you not be concentrating on what you are doing rather than on the music?"

"I can do both," Lauren said. "Relax, Legolas. I'm a very good driver. I've been a licensed driver since the day after I turned sixteen. I've got a lot of experience at this."

"But did you not just destroy your last car?" Aragorn asked. He hated to remind her of her accident, but he was not entirely comfortable with the situation.

Lauren shot him a sideways glower. "That comment wasn't necessary. I hit a patch of ice. It could have happened to anyone." She glanced up and down the road as she reached the end of the driveway and pulled out, accelerating smoothly to get up to the speed limit. She noticed Aragorn grasp compulsively for the armrest.

"How fast are you going?" he asked.

She glanced at the speedometer. "Only forty miles an hour. The speed limit isn't very high through here."

"It seems high enough to me," Aragorn muttered softly.

Lauren glanced at Legolas in the rearview mirror again before returning her attention to the road. He was staring in wonder at the landscape around them. Lauren didn't blame him. Once on the road, it wasn't long until the wooded area with a few houses became housing complexes, apartment buildings, convenience stores and strip malls. Lauren was sure that neither of them had ever seen anything quite like this. Other cars were also on the road, and Legolas was watching them in fascination. Aragorn became aware of his surroundings and loosened his grip on the handle as he started gazing around as well.

A red light forced Lauren to stop in a line of cars. "Why are the vehicles stopped?" Aragorn asked.

"We hit a red light." Lauren pointed to the traffic light ahead of them and explained how they were set up so that everyone knew the rules. Red lights meant stop, green lights meant go, and yellow lights warned that green was changing to red. When the light turned green, the line of cars began moving. At the second stoplight, Lauren crossed traffic to reach the grocery store she frequented. She turned a little faster than Aragorn liked, and he grabbed onto the handle again. After pulling smoothly into a vacant parking spot, she showed Aragorn and Legolas how to undo the seatbelts, and gestured for them to exit the car.

They climbed out of the car and looked around in amazement at the variety of stores in the strip mall. Lauren pointed out the post office, dry cleaners, Chinese restaurant, drug store, bank, and the couple of clothing stores. She explained what each one was as she pointed them out. "But that is the one we're going to," she said, pointing to the large grocery store. She started walking toward it, expecting them to join her. When they didn't follow, she looked back to find them watching a group of kids hanging out in front of the restaurant. She grinned as she saw the multiple piercings and very colorful hair of the teens. She walked back over to stand beside them. "You didn't believe me, did you?"

Aragorn could not take his eyes off of the bright pink hair of a teenage girl. When she turned around to face them, Lauren saw the nose and eyebrow piercings and quickly looked to Aragorn and Legolas to gauge their reactions. Their eyes were wide and their mouths slightly open as they stared at the teens. "Don't stare," Lauren chided them lightly. "It's not very polite."

They made an effort to look away and looked back at Lauren only to see her own eyes widen. "What is that girl wearing?" she exclaimed. "Her parents must not have any idea what she was planning on wearing today. I can't imagine any parents letting their daughter leave the house in a skirt that short."

Aragorn and Legolas were surprised to find that Lauren was uncomfortable with what someone of her own time was wearing. After seeing that she had no problems with wearing a bikini, they thought nothing could shock her.

Lauren shook her head as she interpreted the looks on their faces. "You may not believe this, but my sense of style is fairly conservative. There are certain things I would never wear in public. That skirt definitely makes the list. And no thirteen or fourteen year old needs to be wearing anything like that either. I bet she'd be grounded for a month if her parents saw her in that." She turned away and gestured for them to walk with her. She kept an eye on the cars around them as the crossed the parking lot. She had to grab Aragorn's arm to keep him from simply crossing the street as a car turned the corner from an adjacent aisle. "You really have to watch out for cars if you want to avoid being hit," Lauren said.

Aragorn watched the car drive past them without even looking to check for pedestrians. "That person did not even notice us," he complained.

"No, that's why you have to watch out for yourself," Lauren commented. "There are some incredibly unobservant people in this world. And too many of them have driver's licenses." The road was clear now, and she led them up to the doors of the store. As they stepped in front of the sensors for the doors, they automatically opened.

"How did the door do that?" Legolas asked in curiosity as he stared at the door.

Lauren stepped back out of the sensor's range and the door closed. She explained how the doors worked, and then had to watch as Aragorn and Legolas took turns stepping into sensor range and back out again as they watched the doors automatically open and close. "Are you two quite finished?" she asked in amusement.

They looked back at her and grinned sheepishly. "I believe so," Legolas answered for them both.

"Good, there's a lot to see inside as well," Lauren said. She led them into the grocery store and had to go back and drag them out of the doorway. They had stopped dead in their tracks at seeing the size of the store and the rows and rows of aisles. Placing her arms through each of theirs, she showed them the produce and meat sections, which had similarities to what they could find in the markets of Minas Tirith. Then she took them up and down the seemingly never-ending aisles of food.

"Your people and land must be truly wealthy to have this amount of food available at all times," Aragorn said. "With all of this, no one could possibly go hungry in this land."

"I wish that were the case," Lauren said sadly. "Unfortunately, that isn't how things work. All of the food is here for the taking… for those who can afford it. This food isn't free. You have to be able to pay for it. But the cost of living is so high now that many people have all they can handle just paying for a place to live and the monthly bills. Sometimes, people just don't have enough money to be able to buy all the food they need."

"Is there no one who can help them, then?" Aragorn asked. "The leaders of a land are responsible for the people in it. There is no excuse for a land having food aplenty and still have people go hungry."

"Oh, I agree absolutely," Lauren said. "And there are some government programs to help those in need, but it isn't enough. I have no idea what the solution to the problem is, but I know we need something more than we have now. There is an attitude in this country that you should be able to make it on your own without anyone's help. People hate to admit that from time to time, they could use a helping hand. They feel ashamed that they were unable to provide everything their family needed without asking for help from someone else." She looked around the store, suddenly feeling guilty for all the times she had come in and bought her groceries, taking it for granted that she had the means to buy all the food she needed. "I just wish I had some idea what to do about it." She was silent as they walked through the aisles.

Aragorn glanced at Legolas over her head. He had not meant to bring her mood down again. She was usually so cheerful, but this trip to her world was apparently affecting her in ways they had not expected. Aragorn felt it was their duty to cheer her up. As they rounded the corner into the next aisle, Aragorn knew he wouldn't have to do a thing. Legolas, who had developed quite a sweet tooth, found himself standing amidst a selection of more candies than he had ever seen at once. Lauren glanced up when Legolas stopped in his tracks and saw the delighted expression on his face. She couldn't help but laugh lightly as she watched Legolas. He wandered up and down the aisle, studying all the different varieties of chocolate on display.

"Would you like me to buy you something?" Lauren asked.

Legolas looked at her and then Aragorn. Aragorn nodded. Legolas grinned and picked up two bags of candy. One he had tried with Lauren and loved, the other he had not yet tried, but thought the description sounded good. "May I get both?" he asked.

"Yes, I think I can get a couple of bags of candy," Lauren said. "But I've had a lot of chocolate lately. I think I want something salty to supplement the sweet." She led them to the chip aisle and browsed until she found the barbecue chips she was looking for. They wandered for a short time more, and Aragorn and Legolas looked at the variety of foods, pre-packaged and made for convenience, with utter amazement.

Finally, they had seen everything they wanted to, so Lauren led them to the checkout counter. As they placed their purchases on the conveyor belt, Lauren opened the cooler near the counter and pulled out a Pepsi for herself, and a couple of carbonated fruit drinks for her guests. She reached into her purse and took out her debit card to pay for their selections.

"What is that?" Aragorn asked. "I thought you were going to pay for our food. Where is your money?"

"It's in a bank," Lauren explained. "This card gives me access to the money in my account." She took a few minutes to explain the concept of debit cards, and they watched in fascination as she swiped her card, punched several buttons, and was given a receipt saying that the food was paid for.

"Your world is a confusing, but amazing place," Aragorn commented. "Being able to pay with a small card rather than carrying your money on your person."

"Oh, we still have currency," Lauren said. Taking her wallet out, she showed them some paper currency and a few coins that she had in her change pocket. "Not every place or person accepts debit cards." After putting the money away, she led them to a nearby bench outside and they sat down to enjoy their treats.

Legolas found that he loved both types of chocolate, of course. But he was somewhat less fond of the barbecue potato chips that Lauren had picked up. Something about the spices was not to his liking. Aragorn on the other hand, liked the chocolate and the chips equally well. Lauren watched their faces as they opened their beverages, following her lead and took their first sips.

"There are bubbles in this," Legolas commented in surprise as they tickled his nose.

Lauren explained what little she knew about carbonation in beverages before taking a long drink of her Pepsi. "Oh, I really needed that," she commented after lowering the bottle. "It's been far too long since I've tasted that; I think I was going through caffeine withdrawal." After that comment, she was forced to explain what caffeine was.

"You put stimulants in your beverages?" Aragorn asked in confusion.

"It's a mild stimulant," Lauren said. "It can help people stay awake during the day, though they typically feel more tired after it wears off." After explaining and answering all their questions, Lauren stood up and led them back to the car.

"Where are we going now?" Aragorn asked as they got back in.

"Nowhere in particular," Lauren answered. "I thought we'd just drive around the city a bit and let you get a good look at things." As she was about to start the car, a plane flew overhead. They were fairly close to the airport, so the plane was low enough to be very noticeable.

Both Aragorn and Legolas gazed skyward at the noise. Their mouths fell open in identical expressions of utter disbelief.

"What is that?" Aragorn finally managed to ask in a very hoarse voice.

"That would be an airplane," Lauren answered. "Another form of transportation, meant to hold many more people and be much faster than travel by car. It is also a bit more expensive."

"People can fly?" Legolas asked in amazement.

"People have stepped on the moon, Legolas," Lauren reminded him. "Traveling by airplane is much safer than that and not nearly as difficult."

"Have you traveled in this manner?" Aragorn asked.

"Many times," Lauren replied, shrugging. Traveling by plane was a fairly common occurrence to her.

"What is it like?" Legolas asked, his eyes wide with interest.

"Well," Lauren thought about how to explain traveling in a plane. "For the most part, it's not that different than traveling in a car. The planes are completely closed, and there are rows of seats with uncomfortable cushions and very little leg room." They looked somewhat disappointed. Lauren knew what would help her explanation. "But if you get a window seat, the view is like nothing you two have ever seen before. I've flown through the clouds and been high enough to look down on them. They look so solid, but when flying through them, it's like nothing more than being shrouded in fog. I've seen mountain ranges from so high in the air that they look like nothing more than anthills on the ground. From that height, everything looks like children's toys."

They were utterly captivated by her descriptions. "Would we be able to fly in one of these airplanes?" Legolas asked, glancing back up toward the sky where they had seen the plane.

Lauren glanced at her watch. "Maybe tomorrow. I don't know how much time we have left, but you two have been here for about six and a half hours. If you normally sleep for eight hours or so, we don't have much time left. We can see the city tonight and I'll plan for us to fly a bit tomorrow. How does that sound?"

"Very good," Legolas answered, happy that he would get to experience flight.

Lauren grinned and started the car after making sure that they were both in their seatbelts. She placed her hand on the back of Aragorn's headrest and looked behind them to back out of the rather tight parking space. After putting the car into drive, she pulled smoothly back out onto the road leading into the city. She noticed that Aragorn was watching all of her movements very carefully while Legolas was looking more at their surroundings. Aragorn seemed a little uneasy every time she took a hand off the steering wheel to adjust her visor, fiddle with the radio, or gesture at something along the road.

He finally had to say something. "Should you not keep both hands on the steering device?"

She smiled reassuringly at him. "Do you have to keep both hands firmly on the reins of your horse at all times? Relax, Aragorn. I know what I'm doing."

"A horse does not travel nearly as quickly nor is one nearly as deadly," Aragorn retorted.

"Fine," Lauren said, conceding the point as she made sure both of her hands were on the steering wheel. It was good timing as she heard a siren from behind her. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she saw a fire truck barreling down on them. She easily pulled the car to the side, out of the way of the truck. It zoomed past them, sirens blaring and generally making more noise than anyone from Middle-earth would have experienced before. Looking at them, she found both Aragorn and Legolas with their hands clamped firmly over their ears. Their faces were pale and they seemed to be in pain. "Are you two OK?" she asked.

They lowered their hands slowly, and Aragorn voiced the question they both wanted to ask. "What was that horrendous thing?"

"A fire truck," Lauren said. As she pulled back into traffic, she explained about emergency vehicles and the rules stating that they had the right of way. If a police car, ambulance, or fire truck needed through, lives could be on the line, so people had to get out of their way as quickly as they could. This led to more questions, and Lauren ended up explaining traffic laws such as speed limits, right of way, and driver's etiquette.

"Idiot!" The exclamation burst from Lauren's mouth as a driver cut in front of her, barely inches away from her front bumper. She was forced to stomp on the brakes to keep from rear-ending the other car. "I can't believe that!" she raged. She watched as the other car then proceeded to weave in and out of traffic, trying to find the gaps in traffic to get him to his destination just a few minutes quicker. "That idiot is going to cause an accident," she muttered, her body tensing up as she found herself dealing with the kinds of traffic that she had to face on a daily basis. "No one around here knows how to drive. It's ridiculous. That's just the kind of driver I try to avoid at all costs. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten himself killed yet."

Aragorn had braced his hands quickly on the dashboard as the car decelerated abruptly and Legolas had caught himself on the back of Aragorn's seat. They now looked at Lauren in astonishment. While they had seen her in many different moods, they had never seen her like this.

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked tentatively.

"Yeah?" she asked, looking briefly in his direction.

"Are you OK?" he asked, borrowing one of her phrases.

"I'm fine," she replied tersely.

"You seem a little…" his voice trailed off as he could not decide how to describe her mood.

"Peeved, ticked, a little irate?" she asked easily, her breathing slowing as she began to calm down..

Aragorn was unsure of the meaning of the first two words, but irate did seem to describe her at the moment. He nodded.

"Sorry," she said. "If it was just that one idiot, I wouldn't have reacted like this. But I see people driving like that nearly every day. There are a lot of idiots out there who really should not have driver's licenses."

"You seem to enjoy calling people idiots," Legolas observed.

Lauren shot him a grin in the rearview mirror. "Just be glad I don't call them something stronger."

She had been driving on city streets for awhile now, and noticed that Aragorn flinched whenever she got closer than he liked to cars that were parked along the street. There was an entrance to the highway just up ahead. She thought that she would be able to go a little faster on the highway, which was something she would enjoy. If they could avoid having cars on the side of the road that might be too close to Aragorn's side of the car, he might be able to relax a bit more, as well. Glancing in her mirrors, she pulled into the exit lane and smoothly headed down the ramp. A slightly stronger curse emerged from her lips as she saw the traffic at almost a dead stop. "Just great," she muttered. She inched her way into the traffic when she reached the bottom of the ramp and then inched along the highway.

"I must subconsciously hate myself," she muttered.

"Why do you say that?" Legolas asked in confusion, staring at the reflection of her eyes in the mirror.

"Because we're stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I really hate driving in this, and this whole thing came from my mind. Therefore, I seem to be trying to torture myself." Since they were not moving at all, she leaned her head back against the seat and bounced her head lightly off the headrest a couple of times.

Aragorn wanted to calm her down, she was far too tense. He remembered one of the songs she had played when she was teaching them about astronomy. The lyrics and details of the melody escaped him, but he could remember the opening notes. With a thought, the music switched from the fast paced song that had been playing to the opening of the mellow song. He trusted that her mind would pick up the song and keep it going. That guess was proven correct as the song continued past the point he could remember.

With a smile, Lauren glanced over at Aragorn. "You're getting to know me far too well. You've guessed the real reason I listen to music while I drive. It keeps me calmer, if not really mellow. Whenever I get too stressed over the traffic or other drivers, I shift my attention to the music and let it bring me out of that tense mood." Her body was relaxing as she spoke.

"I was not sure it would work," Aragorn admitted. "But I remembered you saying that music affected your mood. I decided it was worth a test."

"Well, it worked," Lauren said. She looked to either side of the car and saw large semi trucks. They were effectively sandwiched. "I'm getting a little claustrophobic, here," she said. "So why don't we do something about that?" With a dramatic wave of the hand, all the traffic disappeared, leaving an empty road. "Ooh, I like that," she murmured to herself. "I wish I could do that on the days I'm running late for work." A wicked grin crossed her face as she began accelerating. The road in front of them changed from the city highway to a long, straight, flat stretch of road. "I've always wanted to know what it felt like to drive at a hundred miles an hour."

Aragorn and Legolas exchanged panicked glances. Their hair whipped around their heads as the car sped down the road. Aragorn grabbed the handle on the door. But as the car accelerated and nothing bad happened, they began to relax. This was actually rather fun.

Lauren changed the song on the radio to something with a driving rock beat. Mellow songs did not fit flying down the road like this. This was definitely something she could never do in reality, but here, there was nothing to stop them. She just had to make sure there was nothing in the road that she might run into. She looked over at Aragorn and saw him relaxing back into the seat and resting his arm on the top of the door. A glance in her rearview mirror showed that Legolas had his arms outstretched and his head tilted back as he enjoyed the feel that was created by driving at this speed. He didn't even seem to mind her music, for once.

Eventually, Lauren slowed the car down and came to a stop. Her eyes were bright and she was practically bouncing. "Who needs caffeine? That is more of a stimulant any day!" She looked over at Aragorn thoughtfully. "Would you like to try driving?"

Aragorn looked back at her in astonishment. "You want me to drive this vehicle?"

"I thought you might enjoy it," Lauren answered. "I noticed that you were watching everything I did. I could teach you pretty quickly how to do it." She gestured at their surroundings. There was absolutely nothing around them; no obstacles or anything for a new driver to bump into. "I wouldn't expect you to go very fast, but I thought you might like the experience."

Aragorn glanced uncertainly over to Legolas. "Would you like to try?"

"No, my friend. I have no desire to operate this vehicle. But that should not stop you." Legolas gestured with his hands to indicate the driver's seat.

With a nod, Aragorn glanced back over to Lauren. "I believe I would like to try it."

"Good," Lauren said as she and Aragorn got out and switched seats. She showed Aragorn how to adjust the seat to make it more comfortable for himself. There was a very quick lesson on the basics, namely which pedal to push to go and which one to push to stop. After getting a quick explanation of how to steer and how to change the gear from park to drive, Aragorn was ready to make the car move. Following Lauren's instructions, he pushed on the brakes and shifted the car into drive. Gently easing his foot off the brake pedal, he moved his foot over to step on the gas. Since he was inexperienced with how much pressure was necessary, the car shot forward suddenly. In a panic, Aragorn stepped on the brakes, forcing his passengers to brace themselves to keep from being thrown forward.

"OK," Lauren said. "Now you have an idea of what the pedals do. Let's try this again. More gently this time."

Aragorn looked very unsure of himself, but took his foot off the brake pedal and very gently put his foot on the gas pedal. The car began inching forward. After several minutes of going about three miles an hour, he gained enough confidence to increase their speed up to nearly ten miles an hour. Lauren watched the fascinated expression on Aragorn's face with proud amusement. As he was gaining enough confidence to increase their speed even more, Lauren noticed that his hands were becoming transparent. "You should probably stop the car, now," she said in a calm voice to avoid alarming Aragorn.

He did so, putting the car back in park before looking at her. "Why did we have to stop?" There was a disappointed look on his face.

Lauren grinned. "It may have escaped your attention, but you're waking up. I just didn't want to be in the passenger seat of this car when the driver disappeared."

Aragorn looked down at himself in confusion. "So I am," he remarked. He barely had time to nod his head at her in acknowledgment and say, "Until tomorrow night," before he vanished completely. A glance in the backseat confirmed that Legolas had also vanished.

Lauren shifted over to sit in the driver's seat. "Well, here I sit in a shiny red convertible. There must be someplace I can go to show this off." She put the car in gear and headed down the road, wondering where she would end up.


	13. Travel

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. This chapter includes a discussion of a song by Evanescence, 'Imaginary'. I don't have any rights to the song.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Thirteen - Travel (Postcards from Europe)

As night approached, Aragorn began to feel uneasy. He had the notion that when he appeared to Lauren that night, he should appear alone, without Legolas. Not knowing why that would be the case, or if the feeling was real, the thought disturbed him. Lauren had never been able to contact him in his waking hours before and he was unsure if she was actually doing so now.

Arwen noticed his preoccupation as they were getting ready to retire for the evening, and questioned him about it. Aragorn was not sure how to answer.

"I feel that Lauren needs me to come alone tonight. I do not know why I feel this, or why such would be the case." He shook his head as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Is she communicating with you?" Arwen asked, gazing at him with amazement in her eyes.

"If so, this would be the first time," Aragorn said. "And that thought alone is enough to make me uneasy. Why would she be able to contact me in my waking hours now when she has never done so before?"

"Perhaps the two of you have only now grown close enough to make such a thing possible," Arwen suggested. She sat down beside him on the bed. "This is not entirely unheard of, Aragorn. My father and Galadriel have long been able to converse across vast distances."

"Yes, but neither Lauren nor I are elves, my love. We do not have the abilities that they are blessed with." Aragorn's voice was soft, but displayed his confusion at this latest development.

"Mayhap not, but you are family, and you have been sharing experiences in your dreams for many nights now." She took his hand in hers. "There is nothing in this contact that should make you fear. If you feel that you should appear alone, then that is what you should do. If the feeling is incorrect, and Lauren asks where Legolas is, you can then summon him. But you should first see if there is a reason behind this feeling."

Aragorn nodded. "You are wise, as always, my love." He gently squeezed the hand he held. "That is what I will do. I do not feel that I should wait. Would you put Eldarion to bed without me tonight? I want to see how Lauren is doing. Our last contact left me feeling that she is not always as cheerful as she would have us believe. She is a very complicated individual, and I worry for her. I do not wish to leave her alone any longer than is necessary."

"Then go and see her," Arwen said. "I will read Eldarion his night time story tonight, or perhaps I will allow Gimli to entertain him with a tale."

"Not one of battle, please," Aragorn responded, laughing. "When Gimli tells him tales of battle, Eldarion takes far too long to settle down again. He will never go to sleep if you allow Gimli to entertain him."

"Very well," Arwen said with a twinkle in her eyes. "I will be sure that he tells a much calmer tale tonight." She leaned over and kissed him goodnight before standing up. "Go on, love. Go to sleep, I will join you later. I will inform Legolas as well, so that he may soon venture to sleep."

Aragorn smiled and nodded at her before lying down and pulling the covers up. He was tired enough that it did not take more than a few minutes before he drifted off to sleep.

The sight before him was a surprise; he was back on a beach, the sky a clear blue above him and the ocean stretched out before him in varying shades of blue and turquoise. Boats dotted the water stretching out to the horizon. As he looked around, though, he realized it was no beach he had seen before. The material under his feet was not sand, but smooth rocks and pebbles. The coastline stretched off to curve around them, and was not the wilderness of trees and bushes that he had seen before. A city or village of some kind lined the beach. Where the beach ended, there was a street filled with cars, sidewalks full of people walking, riding those devices Lauren had named bicycles and gliding along on 'roller-blades'. Buildings rose up on the other side of the street, but the lettering on some of those buildings formed words he did not recognize. It slowly sank into his consciousness that he had been hearing music as he took in his surroundings. The music was loud and had the driving beat that Lauren seemed to prefer.

He easily found Lauren standing at the water's edge, letting the waves swirl around her legs as she sang along to the music, seemingly with all her heart. The words of this song did not seem to match the idyllic surroundings. It spoke of an imaginary world being created to escape the nightmares that reality held. And Lauren sang right along with it, speaking of being swallowed by the sound of her screaming and longing for a deep sleep to avoid the chaos of life. ('Imaginary' by Evanescence)

Aragorn frowned as he thought about those words. Was this world that she inhabited a refuge for her to recover in or a place to hide away from a world to which she did not want to return? That question touched on something he had been wondering about for some time now. She had been here for many days. Did she stay here out of choice, refusing to return, or was it indeed out of her hands, as she claimed? The words of that song seemed to indicate a desire not to return, but he did not get a feeling of despair from her right now. Despite the words she sang, she seemed to be enjoying herself. She was moving her body in time to the music in what Aragorn assumed was some kind of dancing. Her clothing was cheerful, a brightly colored summer dress with short sleeves. Their surroundings were cheerful, the sky and waters blue, the weather that of a beautiful summer day. He decided that the only way he would get any answers would be to question Lauren.

"Lauren?"

She stopped singing and spun to face Aragorn.

"Bonjour, mon ami! Bienvenue à Cote d'Azur!" A wide grin spread across her face as she gestured to their surroundings.

"Excuse me?" Aragorn asked with a blank look on his face.

"I said 'Hello, my friend. Welcome to the Azure Coast.'" She gazed around happily.

"Where are we?" Aragorn did not recognize her reference to the Azure Coast.

"We're in the southern part of a country called France." She frowned briefly as he walked over to stand near her, just out of the reach of the waves. "I hadn't meant for you to find me on the beach again. Are you early, or did I just lose track of time? That wouldn't surprise me, you know. I can easily get lost in just watching the waves rolling into shore." Her eyes were drawn back toward the water as she spoke.

"I came a little early," Aragorn admitted. "I was worried about you."

"Why?" Lauren asked in confusion, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"I had the impression that you wanted me to arrive alone, and when I arrived, the song you were singing did not ease my concerns about you."

"Oh, the song worried you?" She shook her head briefly. "It shouldn't. I know you have come to realize how music and my emotions are intertwined, but sometimes, I just get a song stuck in my head that I can't get rid of. And for a few hours now, I've had the entire Evanescence CD stuck in my head, playing from beginning to end, over and over. It's a little odd, actually, but I don't mind. They're one of my favorite groups."

"But the words…" Aragorn began, shifting uncomfortably.

"Kind of apropos, aren't they?" Lauren said with a little laugh. "But don't worry. Most of their songs are a little…dark or depressing, or something, but I like them anyway. It doesn't have anything to do with my mood, I assure you. Who could be down in a place like this?" His first comment sank in and she looked at him with surprise on her face. "You actually felt that I wanted you to show up without Legolas? That's…really a little odd. Neat, I suppose, but odd. I had something I wanted to ask you before Legolas showed up, but I didn't think you'd be able to know that. I'm rather glad you did, honestly. This would not be the place to have him show up, but I couldn't resist. I started thinking about places I'd like to show you, and when I start thinking about my travels, the beaches of Nice always play a part. I'm not overly fond of the rocky beach or the cold water, but there's just something special about this place, something unique. There's no place else like it."

Aragorn waited for her to finish rambling about the beach and tried to get to the heart of the matter. "What did you have to ask me that Legolas could not hear?"

Lauren smiled ruefully, being reminded that she did have something to ask. "Well, after you told me about his sea longing, I've tried to keep away from places like this, but I do have some places that I would like to show you both." A gust of wind blew her hair into her face and she pushed it absentmindedly out of the way before continuing. "There is a place in Italy called Venice that I would like to share with you. The thing is that Venice is surrounded by water. It has a system of canals running through the city, and a while back, the main way to get around there was by boat in those canals. I thought it would be nice to take you both on a boat ride there, but didn't know how that would affect Legolas. Would it be a problem, do you think?"

Aragorn took a moment to think about the question and formulate a reply. "I do not know if the canals you speak of would be enough to awaken his sea longing, but the sight of the ocean beyond the city would surely be enough. I do not wish to take the chance of hurting him thus."

Lauren sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. I think he'd enjoy the gondola ride, but I wouldn't want to do anything to hurt him, either. Would you like to join me on the ride? We can summon Legolas afterward."

Aragorn nodded his agreement. He hated to disappoint Lauren like he obviously had, but his priority in this situation was to protect Legolas from the pull of the sea. Lauren began to walk away from the beach, and Aragorn followed her. Their surroundings changed around them from a beach to a town square with shops lining three sides. The fourth side of the square was occupied by a large ornate building with multiple domes on the roof and high arched doorways with mosaics filling the arches. There was also a tall tower on one of the corners of the square near the ornate building.

"This is St. Mark's Square," Lauren explained, gesturing around them. "And the large building there is St. Mark's Cathedral. The cathedrals in Europe are absolutely amazing. This one has a slightly different architecture than many. It seems to have a Byzantine feel, to me at least. But cathedrals in general have some of the most interesting architecture and the most ornate decorations."

"What is a cathedral?" Aragorn asked.

"It's a place of worship," Lauren explained. "They were built as places to go where you could worship God, or Ilúvatar, as you name him. I guess people think that to make a place worthy to worship the creator of everything, it needs to be awesome and breathtaking in it's own right. Personally, I believe that you can worship as well in the middle of an open field as in a cathedral, but I admit that there is something to the idea. When you walk into one of those cathedrals, you can't even imagine raising your voice above a whisper. You can just feel that you're standing on holy ground."

"Will we go inside?" Aragorn asked curiously.

"Once we get Legolas here, we can do that. I don't want to have him miss any more of this than we have to."

Aragorn glanced around and noted that the ocean could not be seen from where they stood, and there were no seagulls visible, though there was a flock of pigeons in the center of the square. There was a scent of the sea in the air, but maybe that would not be a problem. He truly did not want to disappoint Lauren, and he thought Legolas would find this place fascinating. "Are we likely to actually see the sea on this 'gondola' ride you mentioned?" Aragorn asked.

Lauren shook her head. "For most of the ride, we'd be in narrow canals between buildings. And even the part of the ride in the Grand Canal does not have a view of the sea. Come on and take a look for yourself." She led him through an alley out of the square and to a small bridge crossing one of the narrow canals she had mentioned. "Most of the ride would be in places like this."

Aragorn studied the narrow waterway between the two rows of buildings. Legolas had not been bothered by any of the lakes or rivers they had seen, and as long as they avoided the sea, he might be able to enjoy himself here. Making up his mind, Aragorn summoned Legolas to join them.

"Hi," Lauren said in surprise. She looked at Aragorn with a raised eyebrow, and Aragorn nodded in return to indicate that he had changed his mind. Turning toward Legolas with a bright smile on her face, she said, "Welcome to Venice."

"Venice?" Legolas asked, looking around him. Since they had left the square, the sight that met his eyes was that of the small bridge they were standing on that crossed over the canal between the two rows of buildings.

"It's a village in a country called Italy," Lauren explained. "Besides walking, the only way to get around is by boat in the canals. We were on our way to catch a gondola ride through the city. Would you care to join us?"

"I would enjoy that," Legolas said, gazing around curiously.

Lauren started walking toward the place they would pick up the gondolas, and Aragorn and Legolas fell into step behind her. Legolas leaned in to whisper to Aragorn. "Did Lauren wish you to arrive by yourself as you had thought?"

"Yes, she had a question to ask me," Aragorn replied, not wanting to tell Legolas that the question was about his sea-longing.

Legolas did not seem inclined to ask what Lauren had wanted to know. His attention was on the fact that Aragorn had been able to feel what Lauren wanted of him. "What do you think of this contact between you?"

Aragorn shrugged. "Arwen believes that Lauren and I have simply grown close enough to allow such a contact in my waking hours. She does not think there is anything odd in it."

Shaking his head slightly, Legolas commented, "I asked what you think, not what Arwen thinks."

Aragorn shook his head in response. "I do not know what I think about the matter. It strikes me as unusual that two humans would be able to do such a thing across such distances in time. Meeting her is odd enough, but that I would sense her thoughts while awake?" He shrugged again to indicate his confusion on the matter.

"Do you think you will be able to keep in contact with her once she awakens?" Legolas asked as a sudden thought occurred to him.

Aragorn's eyebrows rose. "I never considered that." He paused in thought for a moment. "I would like to know that she is able to recover from her injuries and live her life once she awakens, but I do not think I would like to know what she is thinking and feeling for the rest of our lives."

Legolas smiled slightly. "I do not think that is truly a concern, Aragorn. Even among elves that have such abilities, it takes a conscious effort to communicate mind to mind. It is not likely that you will sense such things about her throughout your lives."

"Are you two coming?"

Aragorn and Legolas glanced up to see Lauren standing in front of them with her hands propped on her hips. They abruptly realized that they had stopped walking during their conversation and left Lauren to continue walking without them.

"Yes, I apologize," Aragorn said as he and Legolas joined Lauren.

"No problem," she said airily. "I just thought you might like to know we're there."

Glancing around, Aragorn saw that there were steps leading to the edge of the water, where a long narrow boat awaited them. The ends of the boat curved upright, and at one end of the boat, a man stood on a flat area with a long pole in his hands. Lauren gestured for the two of them to precede her onto the boat. Aragorn stepped into the gondola and took a seat in front of the man with the pole. Legolas followed and took a seat beside him. Lauren chose a seat facing the both of them so that she could see their reactions to the ride. The gondolier pushed away from the loading area and began moving them into one of the canals.

Lauren sighed happily and relaxed back into her seat.

"You seem much more cheerful than you did yesterday," Legolas commented, studying the look on her face.

"That's probably because I am," she replied. "I love traveling and getting to see other parts of the world. I've been to Europe a few times now, but I never get bored with it. There's just such a sense of history, of age, to almost anywhere you go in Europe. My own country only formed a little over two hundred years ago. There are no man made buildings or monuments that have stood for several centuries, as you can find here."

"You have an interest in ancient things?" Legolas asked.

"Kind of," Lauren answered. "Maybe that's why I like hanging out with you two." She had a wide grin on her face and winked at them to let them know not to take that comment seriously.

"I can't look at things made so long ago without wondering about the people who made them. What were their lives like? What were their hopes, their dreams? Would they approve of the world today, or would they be horrified? So, really, that is part of the reason I loved meeting you. In you, I can find the answers to a few of those questions."

She looked away from them up at the buildings rising on either side of the canal. A window box of bright purple flowers caught her eye and she smiled. "This really is a beautiful place. I can't help but fall under the spell of the history and romanticism of it all. Venice is a popular place for lovers, you see. A gondola ride through the canals is a very romantic image. It has been shown in numerous movies and popularized in the media. Of course, those gondola rides usually involve a single gondola out in the moonlight with the gondolier singing Italian opera songs to the couple. My only true-life gondola ride involved being in a gondola with five other people, none of whom I was romantically involved with, and a gondolier who thought the whole thing was a race. He passed three other gondolas in the Grand Canal and ended up carrying on a playful argument in Italian with two other gondoliers. It wasn't quite what is shown in movies." She laughed as she remembered that day. "It was fun, though." She pointed as they turned a corner and came out into a wider canal. "And speaking of it, welcome to the Grand Canal."

As they passed the houses lining the canal, Aragorn commented on the fact that many of the houses had doors that opened directly out to the water.

Lauren laughed. "I can't help but wonder what would happen if someone in one of those houses was a sleep-walker. I suppose that would be a shocking wake up call, wouldn't it?"

Aragorn laughed at the thought, and it reminded Legolas of a story regarding Aragorn and his brothers that he then entertained them all with. The story involved a prank and an unexpected dunk in a pond.

When they reached the end of the gondola ride, she led them back to St. Mark's Square. Legolas looked up at the cathedral, and Lauren explained to him as she had explained to Aragorn what a cathedral was.

"May we go inside?" Legolas asked.

"Of course," Lauren answered as she walked across the square. She looked in disgust at the dozens of pigeons flocking the square between their position and the cathedral. "We just have to wade through this mess of pigeons."

"You do not like birds?" Legolas asked in surprise. With her love of animals, the thought that she might not like birds came as quite a shock.

"Well, I'm not much of a bird person, but I don't dislike all birds. I think eagles and hawks are a joy to watch in the sky. And I've always wished I could fly like a bird." Her eyes lit up as a thought occurred to her. She kept it to herself as she let the idea develop fully.

"Birds of prey," Aragorn commented with a small smile.

Lauren smirked slightly. "I did say that I seem to like predators over prey. Though I guess that's not really the whole story here. I love swans, they're such beautiful creatures, and you could never call them a predator. I think it's just safe to say that I love grace and beauty, like most people. I just don't see either of those qualities in pigeons. They're loud, obnoxious, dirty birds." She looked at the ground under her feet as she made her way toward the cathedral. "You can't take one step without looking very carefully to see if the ground is clear." She ducked as a small grouping of birds flew low over her head.

Aragorn laughed at the look on her face. "You almost seem as if you are afraid of the birds."

Lauren frowned at him. "It's not fear, exactly, just an extreme dislike. I had a bad experience with them as a child."

"What happened?" Legolas asked her.

"Nothing much," she said. She pointed to a teenage girl who had two pigeons resting on her arm, eating out of her hand. "My brother convinced me to do that when I was about five years old. That would have been fine, but about twenty pigeons decided that they all wanted to be eating out of my hand. They were flying all around me and fighting each other for the food. It was pretty terrifying. I really haven't liked them since."

They made it across the square and stood in front of the cathedral. There were five semi-circular arches with gold mosaic images inset in them. Above the middle arch, high overhead, were the statues of four horses, and above those, there was another series of high arches, with the roof above each of these arches rising to a point. Then above that were the high domes on the roof. Aragorn and Legolas just stood for a moment, looking up above them at the height of the building and the detail of the mosaics.

"This place is amazing," Legolas remarked softly.

"It is pretty awesome," Lauren said. "But as majestic as this place is, I still think the Duomo in Florence and Notre Dame in Paris are more beautiful. The exterior of the Duomo is done entirely in marble; pink, white and green marble, with carved pillars and figures. It's absolutely beautiful. And the back of Notre Dame is also gorgeous, with the flying buttresses providing support for the building, and all of the stained glass windows. The gargoyles along the roof are pretty cool, too. I think those are my favorite cathedrals, but I don't think we'll have time to see all of the ones I like."

When they walked inside the cathedral, Lauren pointed out the uneven floor. "Venice is built on a series of wooden pillars sunk deep into the ground below the water. Over the centuries, things have shifted somewhat. Some of the places have sunk lower than others. And, unfortunately, I think Venice is sinking. I'm sure I've heard something about it over the past few years, though I don't know how quickly it's happening. I mean the place has been here for centuries, but now, at high tide, the square we just left behind can flood. I hope someone can do something to keep it from happening, because this is a very special place."

"Sinking?" Legolas asked Aragorn as Lauren walked ahead of them up a few steps into the main part of the cathedral.

Aragorn just shrugged and followed Lauren inside. He could see what she meant immediately. He felt that if he had to speak, he should not speak above a whisper. The ceiling was far above their heads, and most of the walls and ceiling were covered in golden mosaics. At the front of the cathedral, there were marble pillars, upon which rested a series of figures on either side of a cross. The cross had a figure of a man hanging upon it. Aragorn studied the figures in silence for many minutes before turning to Lauren and asking who they and the man upon the cross were. He could not help feeling that there was a very important story behind them, especially the man upon the cross.

Lauren remained silent for a time as she stared at the cross. "I don't think I can tell you that. The identity and story of that man has the ability to change the course of history. I cannot in good conscience tell you about him." After a few more minutes of wandering, Lauren led them back outside.

Legolas and Aragorn stared around them in wonder. Instead of the city square that they had entered the cathedral from, they were now facing a spacious, open grassy area upon which sat several large white buildings. One of these buildings was circular, one was a larger building built in the shape of a cross, and beyond it was a tower that leaned slightly out behind the largest building. Legolas turned around to look behind them, and did not see the cathedral they had just left. Instead, there was an arched entryway in a wall surrounding the area they now occupied.

"Where are we?" Legolas asked.

"This is Pisa," Lauren answered. "I know the change in scenery was rather abrupt, but we don't have a lot of time, and I have a lot I want to show you. This place is famous for its leaning tower. The ground was a bit too soft to support the weight of the tower on such a small area, so after they built a few levels and it started to tilt, they stopped working on it. The tower was actually built in three stages, and each time, people tried to correct the tilt. It didn't work, but that defect has made it very famous over the years. Recent corrections have stopped it from tilting any further, but people chose not to try to straighten it out completely. That would destroy the very feature that makes it so unique and famous."

They looked at the tower in curiosity. "It is unique," Aragorn remarked as he tilted his head as if to see what the tower would look like standing straight.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Lauren said. "And it's one of the things that I think everyone should see at some point, but there was actually another reason I brought you here." She led them to the smaller round building. "This is the baptistry, the larger building is the main cathedral, and the tower is the bell tower. This baptistry has a very unique set of acoustics." Opening the door, she gestured for them to enter. Gently taking hold of Legolas' wrist, she tugged him into the center of the building. Aragorn was looking around at the stained glass windows and the objects in the room. He looked back at Lauren and Legolas when Lauren called his name.

"What are we doing?" Aragorn asked as he joined them in the middle of the circular building.

"We are going to listen to Legolas sing," Lauren answered.

"Are you?" Legolas asked with a raised eyebrow as he crossed his arms. This was the first mention he had heard of it.

"Well, you do have the best voice of any of us, and I have something I want to demonstrate to you." The grin on her face was rather impish, but she wiped it off her face to give him an innocent expression that might better convince him to cooperate.

"What do you wish to demonstrate?" Legolas asked, curious.

"Sing one note and hold it for about a second, then stop, and you'll see," Lauren directed.

Giving her a rather doubtful look, Legolas did as she suggested. The note bounced off the high vaulted ceiling and echoed back, changing pitch as it reached their ears. Then another note was heard, and another. Legolas and Aragorn looked back at Lauren in surprise.

"See?" she asked, thrilled as always to hear the unique echo effect created by the acoustics of the building. "I told you there was something special here. You can sing four part harmony all by yourself."

Legolas was quite taken with this idea, and experimented with the phenomena for several minutes, singing one note after another, a wordless melody, enjoying the sounds of the harmonies created by the building.

Closing her eyes, Lauren listened as a feeling of peace swept over her. Being here always affected her like this, and it was made even more special by the fact that she was listening to elven song. When the last note faded away into silence, Lauren sighed happily. "That was beautiful… So, are we ready to head off for the next place?"

"Why can we not take the time to explore the cathedral and tower here?" Aragorn asked.

"We just have a lot to do," Lauren said. "When we were talking earlier, I had some ideas on what I would like to do today. I did some rearranging, and cut a few things, but I think you'll enjoy the change in plans."

"What are these new plans?" Legolas asked.

"You'll have to wait and see," Lauren said. "But I'll give you this hint. The conversation about the pigeons gave me the idea."

At that, a confused look crossed Aragorn and Legolas' faces, and Lauren grinned before showing them the way out of the building. As before, as they exited, they found themselves in a place they had never seen before. They stood among a series of ruins, little remaining but a series of columns and broken stone. "Where are we now?" Aragorn asked.

"Rome," Lauren answered. "This was the capital city of a great ancient empire. The empire existed about two thousand years ago and ruled for nearly a thousand years. At the height of their power, they ruled over all of western Europe, the northern tip of Africa, and part of Asia, including Turkey and Syria. I know this doesn't mean much to you, as the geography has changed a lot since your time, but that's a lot of territory. They were the world power at the time. Now, all that is left of that empire is ruins. This place was once the Roman Forum. There were great majestic buildings all around with columns in front, which is a trademark of roman architecture. Now, after all these years, only the columns mark where some of these buildings once stood."

She brought them out of the Forum and took them to the Roman Colosseum. "The Romans were not exactly what I would consider to be very civilized, though they thought themselves the most civilized society to exist. This is where they had gladiators fighting each other, with weapons, and very often to the death. Thousands of people; slaves, prisoners, and volunteers died in these battles. Many times people were thrown in with wild animals. Sometimes they were given weapons to fight the animals, but other times, they were simply thrown in to amuse the spectators by getting torn apart. I really don't think much of their idea of a sport, obviously. They didn't seem to regard human life very highly." She showed them around the colosseum as they spoke.

Aragorn nodded. "Yes, I have heard of such practices by other cultures in my time. I have been doing all in my power to make peace with all lands surrounding Gondor, but practices such as this have made things rather difficult. As part of the treaties, I have tried to insist that certain practices be stopped, but that is not always possible."

"Well, I wish you luck in getting it stopped," Lauren said. "But historically, I can tell you that human nature will just start it up again. It amazes me sometimes, the depth of cruelty that humans are capable of."

"But humans are also capable of great hope, generosity, compassion, love and strength," Legolas pointed out. "You must not allow yourself to forget that."

Lauren sighed. "Yeah, I know. It's just hard to remember that sometimes, when all I see in the news on my world are the horrible things that humans can do to each other." From the upper level of the colosseum, she pointed out the wall around the city. "Long ago, all cities had to have a wall around them to protect from invaders."

"Minas Tirith is a walled city," Aragorn said. "The wall was instrumental in protecting our people from Sauron's armies."

"Oh, I'm sure it was," Lauren replied. "In your time, with the weapons available, a strong wall would be an essential part of a city's defenses. But now, with the modern weapons that we have, a wall would be useless. Planes can fly above the city and drop bombs. Missiles can be targeted on pinpoint locations from across a great distance. One area that humans have made great, but horrible, progress in is the so called 'art' of warfare. Humanity as a race probably has enough weapons to wipe out all life on earth." She paused for a moment in thought. "Except for the cockroaches. Those nasty little buggers will probably outlive us all."

Aragorn and Legolas looked at her in horror. "Humans truly have such power?" Aragorn asked.

Lauren just shrugged. "Power?" she mused. "Maybe. Stupidity, certainly."

"Stupidity?" Legolas asked, confused by her comments.

"What genuinely intelligent race would create the means of their own destruction?" Lauren asked. She took a breath to say something more, then shook her head. "I'm sorry. You don't want to get me started on this topic. I didn't want to get off on this tangent today. I just wanted to show you some of the history that has happened since your time. I had another city that I wanted to show you. It's one of my favorite European cities, actually. What do you think about leaving here and going to visit Paris, the city of lights?"

Legolas looked like he might have wanted to pursue the earlier discussion, but decided to allow the change in subject. "This 'Paris' sounds like it might be a nice place to see."

Aragorn nodded his head in agreement. Lauren looked around and with a dramatic wave of her hand, changed their surroundings. The buildings around them now still had a feeling of age, but there were no ancient ruins to be seen. Lauren led them around the side of a large building with a large grin on her face. She couldn't wait to see the looks on their faces when they saw what awaited them on the other side of the building.

As Aragorn rounded the corner of the building, he stopped in his tracks and gazed ahead of him. Legolas quickly sidestepped him to avoid running into his back.

"Why did you stop?"

Aragorn just pointed. Legolas followed the direction of his finger and stared in amazement.

"What is it?" Aragorn finally asked, as he found his voice. He could not decide what the large metal object towering over the surrounding city was supposed to be.

"C'est la Tour Eiffel," Lauren answered, enjoying Aragorn's open-mouthed amazement at the sight before them. She gestured for them to follow her to the waist-high wall in front of them. "This is the most famous construct in France, and one of the most recognizable in the world. It was built in 1889 for a celebration of the centenary of the French Revolution. It was supposed to be a temporary construct, but was kept around for various reasons. At first, the French people did not want it here, they thought it was a monstrosity that would destroy the skyline of their city. Now, the first thing most people think of when you mention Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Would you like to go up in it?"

"May we?" Aragorn asked. "I thought you were not allowing much time in any one place."

"Well, this was one of the things I was trying to find time to do," Lauren explained. She started walking down a set of steps to the left of the viewing area, and Aragorn and Legolas fell into step with her. "I just love going up in the Eiffel Tower," she said. "Though I'm going to do a little wish fulfillment here and not have the usual crowds of people around when we go up. I have been in a crush of people so tight I couldn't move at all. That really kind of takes away from the enjoyment of the experience." She couldn't help but smile at the look on Aragorn's face as they got ever closer to the tower.

When they finally stood at the base of the tower, Aragorn stared upward with his mouth hanging slightly open. "It is even taller than Orthanc," he commented.

"It was the tallest 'building' in the world until about 1930," Lauren said.

Aragorn looked uneasily up the length of the tower. He saw a set of stairs stretching up into the distance. "Must we climb all of those stairs? We will be climbing all night."

"Oh, don't worry about that," she said. "We won't be taking the stairs." They followed her into a small room at the base of one of the legs of the tower. A person stood in the doorway of an even smaller room. Lauren gestured for them to enter the small room. Looking at it and Lauren rather dubiously, they did as she obviously intended and entered. Once all three of them were in the room, the doors slid shut. They looked at her in question. She simply smiled. "Just wait."

Suddenly, the room began to move. Aragorn and Legolas both grabbed the railing along the walls and looked at Lauren in panic.

"It's an elevator," she explained. She pointed out the window, and they looked outward to see that they were rising, rather rapidly, up the inside of the leg of the tower. "Elevators are a means of transporting people quickly up and down buildings so people don't have to take the stairs. They really come in handy in very tall buildings. Nobody in their right minds wants to take thirty flights of stairs every day when they go into work." She leaned against the glass and looked out the window. "Though, as you may have noticed, this has a bit of a diagonal motion. Most elevators go straight up and down." They rode past the first level, and Lauren gestured for them to get off at the second level. "We have to change elevators here. This one doesn't go all the way to the top." When they entered the second elevator, they were a bit more comfortable when it started to move, carrying them swiftly to the top of the tower. The level onto which they exited the elevator was enclosed, with windows looking out in all directions.

"The view is amazing," Aragorn remarked, looking out across the city from one of the windows.

"Oh, it's all right here," Lauren said, "but it's even better up one flight of stairs." They followed her up the last flight of stairs to the uppermost level. Here, there was no enclosing glass, but a railing and fencing from the floor to the ceiling above them to keep people from falling. But here, they could feel the wind blowing past, and the feeling was much more one of openness.

Lauren moved to the railing and looked out over the city, sighing happily. "I do love the view from here. You can see all of Paris."

Legolas studied the warren of small streets winding their way through the multitude of buildings that made up the city. "It looks crowded," he commented.

"Oh, it is," Lauren answered. "And much more so with all the tourists. During prime tourist season, you can't go to any of the main monuments or museums without being caught up in crowds, and even occasionally being in places where there are wall to wall people. It's so great to be here when it's just us. Would you like a tour of the city from here?"

When they nodded, Lauren pointed to one of the most easily recognizable monuments. "That square archway over there is called the Arc de Triomphe," she said. "It was started by one of France's most well known generals to celebrate his victories. You see all the streets that intersect in the circle around the monument? That is one of the most dangerous places in all of Paris. There are very few driving rules from what I've seen. Everyone goes the same direction, but there don't seem to be specified lanes, and everyone cuts in on each other all the time. It's the one place in Paris where insurance companies refuse to insure the vehicles."

"Insurance?" Aragorn asked in confusion.

"Not important." Lauren waved the question away and continued with her tour. "The long street leading away from the monument is called the Champs-Élysées. There are some very exclusive and expensive shops along there. As you near the end of the street, you can see that tall pointy object? That's an obelisk from Luxor, Egypt. It marks the Place de la Concord, where people were once beheaded in the French Revolution. King Louis XVI and Marie-Antionette were about the most famous who were beheaded there."

"They beheaded their king?" Aragorn asked in horror.

Lauren couldn't help but chuckle. Of course Aragorn would have a problem with that. "Well, he wasn't a very good king. He lived in splendor and wealth while many of his subjects lived in squalor. He didn't do much to endear himself to his people. Anyway, the obelisk was a gift from Egypt in 1831. I don't remember exactly why. But if you continue into the gardens past the obelisk, you will see a smaller version of the Arc de Triomphe called the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. It was built by the same person who built the larger version and for the same reason. He was a bit stuck on himself, I think, to need **two** monuments to show off his victories." She shrugged. "Oh well. Just beyond the smaller arch is the Louvre. This is one of the most famous art museums in the world. There are paintings, sculptures and other types of artistic creations in there along with artifacts of many cultures from all over the world."

"And none from Gondor, I assume?" Aragorn asked, a little sadly.

Lauren shook her head. "I think I mentioned that I had never heard of Gondor. I hate to tell you this, but as far as I know, no trace of your culture or civilization has survived to the present day. Now, that's not to mean that we never will find a sign of it. There are occasionally news articles about great archeological finds of new hidden cities that have just been found. For all I know, Minas Tirith is just buried, waiting for some lucky archeologist to stumble across it. I have a feeling that discovery would rock the foundations of archeology and change all of what we know about human history." A smile flickered across her face. "If it ever is uncovered, I'll have to make a trip out to visit it, no matter where it happens to be."

She took awhile pointing out other places of interest from their vantage point above the city. She pointed out Notre Dame Cathedral with its rose windows and flying buttresses supporting the building from the outside. The Sacré Cœur Cathedral stood out like a white beacon on the top of a hill overlooking the city. After pointing out more museums, gardens and monuments, it was almost time to leave. Before they left Paris behind them, though, Lauren wanted to show them why Paris was called the city of lights. The sun abruptly disappeared, leaving them seeing the city as it would appear late at night.

After getting over their initial disorientation, Aragorn and Legolas found themselves quite taken with the lights that shone all over the city, highlighting some of the monuments Lauren had just pointed out. "There's nothing quite like this view," Lauren said. "I would have hated to miss seeing this."

"It is quite beautiful," Aragorn commented softly, looking out over the city. He realized that Legolas had been rather silent throughout their time up here. "Legolas?" he questioned. "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I could not live in a place quite this crowded, no matter how beautiful it is. Though I do admit that it would be a nice place to visit. You are right Lauren. The view from this height is like nothing I have seen before. I have stood on the top of mountains and looked out over lush green valleys, or over desolate plains, but never have I seen light shining through the darkness like this. I thank you for sharing this place with us."

"It was my pleasure," she said, smiling at him. "Before we leave, there is just one last thing. Hold on." With her short words of warning, they were not quite so disoriented this time, as they found themselves suddenly standing in a patch of grass, looking back at the tower they had just been at the top of. The tower was lit by thousands of small lights that flickered on and off and sparkled like jewels in the night. They stood, transfixed by the light show for many long minutes, before the twinkling lights faded out and the tower was simply lit by lights that shone steadily from the interior of the tower.

"What was that?" Legolas asked.

"That light show is something they do for a few minutes every hour throughout the night," Lauren said. "They only started it a few years ago, but it is enormously popular, as I'm sure you can understand."

"Indeed," Aragorn said. "I would find it quite difficult to be nearby and not watch every moment of it."

"Well, I'm glad you liked it. Are you guys up for a little change of pace?" She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

"That would depend on what you had in mind," Aragorn said cautiously. He did not quite trust the gleam in her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll enjoy it." Lauren grinned at them. "Have you ever wanted to fly?"


	14. Flight

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. This chapter includes a discussion of a song by Switchfoot, 'Dare you to move'. I don't have any rights to the song.

//"Oh, I'm sure you'll enjoy it." Lauren grinned at them. "Have you ever wanted to fly?"//

Chapter Fourteen - Flight

"Fly?" Legolas asked with excitement, his eyes lighting up.

"Fly?" Aragorn echoed, his voice not quite sounding so enthusiastic. To Lauren, he sounded almost wary.

She just smiled mysteriously at them and looked around. Aragorn and Legolas followed her gaze as the scenery changed around them once more. It was day again, and they stood in a wide grassy field. In front of them was a contraption that Aragorn and Legolas had never seen before, nor thought they would ever see. A large and very colorful mass of material was suspended above the ground in a sort of distorted spherical shape. Beneath this billowing material hung a large basket with a device that occasionally belched flame toward a hole in the bottom of the material. There was a person standing in that basket controlling the fire. He waved them over.

"What is that?" Aragorn asked. He was not about to go any closer until he got some sort of explanation.

"That, my friends, is a hot air balloon." Lauren's grin stretched from ear to ear and her eyes sparkled with her excitement as she explained what the object was. "It is a law of physics that hot air rises. If you can get enough hot air trapped in a small space, it has enough strength to lift a basket full of people. So, the fire below the balloon heats the air trapped in the balloon, and the people in the basket can fly above the land below. Now, would you like to join me?"

"Yes!" Legolas said instantly. He was excited as a child at the thought of being able to fly among the clouds like the birds.

"Is it safe?" Aragorn asked doubtfully. This did not seem like the best idea to him.

"Completely," Lauren reassured him. "And don't forget, we're in my dreams. I'll make sure there are no dangerous wind conditions or storms springing out of nowhere that might cause a problem. We'll be perfectly safe, I promise. And don't worry, you can't even feel any sense of movement when you're in a balloon."

"You have done this before?" Aragorn asked in surprise, looking back and forth between Lauren and the balloon.

"Once," Lauren answered, a broad smile on her face. "It was great." She bounced lightly on her toes in excitement.

"Very well," Aragorn relented, apparently reluctant to leave the ground.

Lauren led them to the hot air balloon where they quickly and easily clambered into the basket. The person controlling the balloon nodded to someone on the ground and the ropes holding the basket down were released. A loud noise indicated the controller was increasing the flame again, and the basket slowly rose off the ground. Aragorn grabbed the edge of the basket that reached above their waists in reflex, but when he realized that he truly could feel no sense of movement, he relaxed his grip.

Legolas looked around as they rose above the treetops, his eyes shining with excitement and wonder. It was not long before they were higher than the top of the tower they had just left. The land beneath them was rural, farmland with patches of forest. Legolas was much more comfortable here than in any city. They were far enough out for him to sense nature around them. Well, as much as he was able to in this dream world, anyway.

"So, do you like flying like this?" Lauren asked, gazing at the enraptured look on Legolas' face.

"Very much," Legolas answered, not taking his eyes from the view all around them.

"It is very nice," Aragorn agreed. He did not particularly enjoy knowing that the ground was quite so far below them, but he had to admit that this was a very relaxing method of travel.

"I need to put in a little disclaimer here," Lauren said. "I have been in this area before, but I've never seen it by air. I have no idea how close or far apart things are, so what we see here is largely a product of my imagination, though it is supported by the places I have actually visited."

"So where were you when you rode in a balloon the last time?" Legolas asked, glancing briefly back at her.

"It was back in the United States," Lauren said. "There was a hot air balloon festival near where we were living at the time. My parents arranged for me to get a ride as part of my birthday present, though I would love to take a hot air balloon ride over the Loire Valley some day as well." She pointed down to a river below them. "That's the Loire River, from which this valley gets its name. As I said, I don't know how accurate any of this will be, but there's a chateau, or a castle coming up that I want to show you. It's been one of my favorites from the first time I saw it."

As they traveled the length of the river, a building soon came into view that was straddling the river. "What is that?" Aragorn asked.

"That would be Chenonceau, my favorite castle so far," Lauren said. "I won't bore you with the history of the place, since it involves people you've never heard of and have no need to know, but the fact that it was built across the river just makes it special to me."

As they got closer, they could see the archways that allowed the river to flow between the supports of the castle. It was three stories tall, long and relatively narrow, as castles went. Separated from the rest of the castle was a circular tower-like building, though it was no taller than the rest of the castle. The water reflected the main body of the castle, creating a mirror image in the smooth water. On the end of the castle that was obviously the main entrance, the building was a bit wider than the rest, and the walkway leading up to it was flanked on either side by beautiful and extremely well maintained gardens. The garden to the left of the castle had a small circular pool in the middle, surrounded by walkways and grassy areas lined with bushes and flowers. The garden to the right was larger, more sprawling. It also had walkways winding through the garden, grassy areas lined with trees, bushes and flower plantings to keep people off the grass, but it also had intricate designs sculpted in the grassy areas.

"The gardens are beautiful," Legolas commented, "but they are a little too formal for my tastes. The plants are rigidly controlled; they are not allowed to grow as they should. If these trees had the ability to converse with me, I cannot imagine that they would have anything happy to say."

Lauren gave a lopsided grin. "Trust the elf to have a problem with the overly manicured gardens and lawns. I love this place, and I do think the gardens are beautiful, but I can see your point. These gardens were designed for the pleasure of those who look at them, not for the pleasure of the plants. Though, I have to admit, that is how most gardens are designed. Some people just have different tastes."

They soon left Chenonceau behind, and Lauren leaned on the edge of the basket, watching the river, the trees and the farmland pass below them. The height of the balloon was constantly changing as the air within it cooled and the balloon lost some altitude. At that point, the pilot would increase the flames, heat the air and the balloon rose again. Lauren began humming to herself as she watched the scenery pass below them.

"What song is that?" Legolas asked, not recognizing it as one he had heard before.

"You may not want to know," Aragorn warned, remembering the words to the last song she had sung.

"It's not that bad," Lauren retorted. "I'll admit that Evanescence doesn't have exactly the most uplifting music in the world, but they're not the ones stuck in my head anymore. For the last hour or so, I've had Switchfoot songs in my head. It's kind of like someone changed CD's somewhere, and I'm hearing what they're playing. Anyway, the song I was humming is called 'Dare You to Move'. I've never been quite sure, but I think the song is asking the question of how do you deal with problems in life? How do you react when things go wrong? Can you handle them as you should, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue to live your life?" She paused as the comparison to her own life struck her. Her voice was quiet as she spoke again. "Can I get past this accident? What will my life be like when I wake up? Will I be able to handle it, or will it overwhelm me?" She shook her head to rid herself of her less than pleasant thoughts. She didn't want anything to spoil her peaceful day.

Aragorn saw that she was going to change the subject again. He knew that sooner or later she would have to face those questions and prepare herself for anything. It would be his preference for her to discuss her concerns and thoughts with him, rather than face them on her own. After getting to know her, however, he had come to realize that her normal method of trying to deal with problems was to attempt to handle them on her own. Only after it was proved to her that she would not be able to handle things alone would she ever ask for help. Aragorn only hoped he would be around when she reached that point. If he thought it would work, he would stop this 'tour', sit her down and force her to talk. Unfortunately, he knew it would not work. She would evade his attempt and go on to discuss something else. It would be impossible to force her to discuss something she truly did not wish to discuss. All of her previous revelations about herself and her life would not have happened if she had wanted to keep the information from them.

Aragorn's suspicions were proved correct when she pointed to another sight below them. "The castle coming up is the largest in the Loire Valley. It has four hundred and forty or so rooms, with three hundred and sixty-five fireplaces."

"Three hundred sixty-five fireplaces?" Legolas asked. He looked over at Aragorn. "With that many fires, even you would not be able to complain of the cold in the winter."

"I feel the cold no more than any other human," Aragorn retorted. "Just because elves are not affected by cold, you seem to suffer the delusion that I need to stay huddled near a fire in the winter."

"Are you two done?" Lauren asked. "You can bicker later. I don't want you to miss this view. Of course, each of those three hundred sixty five fireplaces needs a chimney, so one of the things this castle is known for is its numerous and detailed chimneys. There are also several famous spiral staircases here. You can't see the most famous one, it's inside, but the double spiral staircase is actually two separate staircases that intertwine, but never intersect. If you had two people start up the stairs at the same time, they would never see each other all the way up except for the small windows inset into the walls of the staircases."

"I would have had fun with that as a child," Aragorn commented, a grin spreading across his face at the thought as he peered over the edge of the basket.

"I can see you as a child playing on those stairs and doing your best to avoid detection as you snuck about," Legolas said with a laugh.

"Can you imagine what my brothers might have done with a staircase like that?" Aragorn asked, chuckling.

"I shudder to think," Legolas laughed lightly, shaking his head.

Lauren gave up the lecture. As long as they were looking at the magnificent castle passing below them, she wouldn't try to interfere with their teasing comments. In fact, it was rather fun to listen to. She simply leaned back against the side of the basket and listened to them as she took in the scenery.

All too soon, the hot air balloon began to descend toward an open field. "You might want to brace yourselves," Lauren said. "There could be a small bump as we land." She held onto the side of the basket and braced her legs in preparation. The other two followed her lead. When they first contacted the ground, there was a large bump, and the basket began to slide sideways as the wind tried to continue carrying the balloon on its path. The basket rose slightly and drifted a few feet before hitting the ground once more. This time, there was not enough hot air in the balloon to lift the basket again. The balloon drifted lazily through the air and was caught by a group of people who were waiting for it. They kept the balloon from covering the basket and pulled it out of the way as two other people stabilized the basket, allowing them to climb out.

"Are all landings that rough?" Aragorn asked, moving away from the basket.

"I don't know," Lauren answered. "I've only been up once. But that was about how I remember it. It wasn't that bad."

"No, not compared to many of my abrupt descents from high places." Aragorn shook his head in remembrance, wondering why he was bringing up a subject that Legolas would surely take advantage of.

Lauren looked confused at Aragorn's comment.

"Aragorn has a habit of falling from nearly every cliff he climbs," Legolas said teasingly.

"Hardly every cliff," Aragorn protested reaching out to swipe at Legolas.

Lauren grinned as Legolas ducked away. Aragorn's apparent dislike of heights was becoming clearer to her.

"Well, other than the landing, did you like flying?"

Legolas's bright eyes and wide smile were all the answer Lauren needed from him. Aragorn nodded. "Yes," he said. "It was a very pleasant trip."

"Would you like to try another form of flight?" Lauren asked, a grin forming on her lips.

"May we see what it involves before we answer?" Aragorn asked warily.

"Of course," Lauren said. She turned around, and as she did so, the surroundings changed from a field to the shore of a lake ringed on all sides by mountains. "Welcome to Annecy," she said. "It's a small village in the French Alps, which is the mountain range around us. I stayed here once for a summer and spent nearly every day at the beaches. The only problems are that the beaches are rocky and the water extremely cold. But other than that, it is a very nice place to visit."

"Where is this new method of flight?" Legolas asked, looking eagerly around and taking in the scenery.

Lauren pointed out toward the middle of the lake. A boat was racing at high speeds along the lake. Attached to this boat was a rope that led up in the air to a person suspended from a half circular shape of material. "Is that person suspended by hot air?" Aragorn asked. "I do not see a method of heating the air."

"No, this is called para-sailing, and the person is held up by a parachute. The speed of the boat is the only thing holding the person up at that height. The parachute catches the wind, and raises the person from ground level. If the boat stops, the person will float gently back to earth." Lauren never took her eyes off the boat and para-sailing rig as she explained.

"And have you also done this 'para-sailing'?" Legolas asked, watching the person soar above the water of the lake. It did look like a great deal of fun to him.

"Yes, twice," Lauren said with an excited sparkle in her eyes as she glanced over to them. "I loved it. Would you like to give it a try?"

"Very much," Legolas answered immediately. He would certainly not turn down a chance to experience flight in whatever method Lauren would care to show them.

Aragorn shook his head as he watched the boat trailing the person high in the air above them. "You said with the balloon ride that you felt no sense of motion. Is that the case with this method?"

Lauren thought about it for a moment. "It's kind of hard to do a comparison. In an elevator, you feel the motion. In a hot air balloon, you feel pretty much like you're standing still. With para-sailing, you feel something, but its more like floating, feeling the wind rushing past and it's exhilarating and relaxing all at the same time."

"And can we all go up at the same time?" Aragorn asked. "It looks rather like only a single person is able to do this."

"Well, you can have two people attached to the same parachute," Lauren said. "I've done it with friends before."

"In that case, I will let the two of you do this," Aragorn said. "You both seem to enjoy the sensation of flying, while I would prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground."

"Are you sure?" Lauren asked. Aragorn's nod was all she needed. Grabbing Legolas' hand, she led him quickly to the dock where a boat awaited them. They were strapped into harnesses that would allow them to be connected to the parachute and then stepped onto a flat platform. The platform was powered by a motor and was capable of matching the speed of the boat. Moving out away from the shore, they waited for the boat to approach them. As the boat came toward them, the platform started moving and once the boat passed them, one of the operators grabbed the rope to the parachute and clipped it into a metal ring at the front of the platform. The person currently in the parachute was slowly brought toward the platform as the boat kept moving at a slower pace. Lauren and Legolas were placed in position so that the moment the other person touched down, he would be unclipped, and they would be clipped to the parachute. It all happened just as it was designed to. Lauren and Legolas were clipped to the parachute with no difficulty, and then the clip at the front of the platform was released. The boat sped up and the parachute rose swiftly and smoothly into the air.

"Whoo-hoo!" Lauren exclaimed the moment their feet left the platform. The first time she had done this, she had been afraid that the initial ascent would bother her, but it was so smooth that it could barely be felt. They quickly reached the extent of the rope and found themselves floating high above the lake.

Lauren turned her head around to glance up at Legolas. The rings he had been attached to were slightly higher and back behind hers, so it almost seemed that they were sitting on two different levels of bleachers. He was looking around them in rapt wonder. His eyes were shining and his hair was blowing in the breeze. He looked like he was having the time of his life. Lauren felt much the same way, and knew that her eyes had that same wild enjoyment. She turned back around and looked down at the lake below them. The water of the lake reflected back the deep blue of the sky, the trees on the mountains around the lake were a forest green, and the town off to the side looked very picturesque. Lauren could not imagine a more perfect moment, and felt a sudden pang of regret that Aragorn had decided not to do this. 'Oh well, his loss,' she thought to herself. She closed her eyes momentarily and held her arms out to her sides, letting the wind rush past her and feeling that she was truly able to fly like a bird. She loved this sensation. Opening her eyes out of fear of missing something, she relaxed back into her harness as she took in the sights. She saw the boat slowing to a stop and they started drifting toward the water. 'Oops,' she thought to herself. With a quick thought, both she and Legolas were no longer wearing shoes. She chose a pair of shorts for herself, but couldn't bring herself to do anything to alter Legolas' clothes. "You may want to roll up your pants legs," she said in warning. As they approached the water, she stopped worrying about it. The people in the boat were watching very closely to see when they touched the water and make sure everything was well with them. Lauren felt her feet break the surface of the water and relished the cool clean feeling of dipping her feet in the lake. As soon as both of them had touched the water, the boat sped up again, and they rose back into the sky. Since Legolas had been sitting higher than she was, in order for him to just dip his feet in the water, she had been submerged to her knees. 'It's a good thing I changed into shorts,' she thought as she felt the cool air blowing past her wet legs. 'It felt good, though.'

After the brief dip in the lake, they began circling back toward the platform. Lauren hated to see that, since it meant their ride was coming to an end, but she did have some more plans for their time together. As soon as they touched down, they were unclipped from the parachute and some other people were clipped up to begin their ride. After the parachute was released, the platform operator directed them on how to remove the harnesses and took them back to the dock. Aragorn was waiting for them at the end of the dock.

"How did you like the flight?" he asked, studying Lauren's bright eyes and flushed cheeks. She looked more alive than he had ever seen her. Looking up at Legolas, he saw much the same thing. Legolas looked more excited than Aragorn had seen him in a long time.

"It was like nothing I have ever experienced," Legolas said. "I cannot find the words to do it justice." His gaze was drawn back to the parachute, watching the person currently soaring above the water.

"Amazing, fantastic, wonderful?" Lauren suggested, bouncing again on her toes, unable to stay still

Legolas looked fondly down at her. "That will do."

"You two seem meant to soar with the birds," Aragorn said. "It is unfortunate that you were born without wings." It truly did please him to see them enjoying themselves.

Lauren grinned at him, a sly look crossing her face. "Oh, there are ways to acquire wings."

Aragorn looked warily at her. "What else do you have planned for us?" Her tone had made him quite suspicious.

"Something I've never done, but always wanted to try," she said. " I actually have a friend who has been trying to get me to do it for years, but I've just never quite had the nerve to do it. My friend does it all the time, and has told me all about it. I always wished I had been able to get up the courage to do it though. You don't have to go if you don't want to, but I don't think you'll want to miss out on it. Just ask Legolas. You missed out on an experience of a lifetime with the para-sailing. You don't want to miss this opportunity." She was babbling in her excitement.

"What opportunity?" Aragorn asked. He looked around to find that they were now high in the mountain range. Lauren was no longer even warning them when she changed the scenery. A pointed finger was her only response. Aragorn looked over the edge of the mountain and saw several triangular shaped objects soaring in the air down the mountainside.

"It's called hang-gliding," Lauren said, gesturing toward the shapes below them with a wide grin on her face. "These set-ups are capable of staying aloft for hours, covering hundreds of miles. Our flight will be much shorter than that. The wings of the hang-gliders catch the wind and an experienced person has complete control over the direction of the glider. They know how to catch uplifts to gain altitude and how to maneuver to stay aloft. Since I've never done this, and neither have you, we'll be doing tandem flights with an experienced instructor. All we have to do is strap ourselves in and let them do the work. This is as close as I can imagine to flying like a bird that we're capable of achieving. So Aragorn, what do you think? Will you give it a try?" She turned large, pleading, puppy dog eyes on him, begging him to join them this time.

Looking at the expectant looks on hers and Legolas' faces, Aragorn could not find it in himself to say no. "Very well, it does look enjoyable." His voice was still somewhat reluctant.

"And this will be the one time you go over the edge of a cliff and land without injury," Legolas put in with a grin. Aragorn glared at him momentarily.

"If you keep saying such things, I may be tempted to change my mind." Aragorn crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his friend.

Lauren clapped a hand over Legolas' mouth. "Don't say anything else. I don't want Aragorn to miss this."

Legolas glared at Lauren and reached up to remove her hand from his face.

Lauren narrowed her eyes and batted his other hand away. "I'll move my hand when you agree to keep your mouth shut. Are we agreed?"

After another glare, Legolas relented and gave her a small nod.

"Good," Lauren said, turning away from them and walking to a clearing where several of the hang-gliders were sitting on the ground, waiting for the chance to loose the bonds of gravity and soar with the eagles. After a short conversation with one of the pilots standing nearby, Lauren came back over to Legolas and Aragorn with three harnesses in her hands and someone trailing along.

"This is Gus," she said as introduction. "He's going to show us how to attach the harnesses and give us a few instructions."

Gus did exactly that, helping them to get into the harnesses correctly, and telling them what they would need to do. When the instructions were given, and there no questions for him to answer, he led them over to the hang-gliders and helped them fasten themselves in. When their pilots gave the word, they started running down the steep incline with the pilot, then found themselves launching upward into the air. Lauren and her pilot went first, followed by Legolas, then Aragorn.

Lauren couldn't help but gasp as the ground dropped out beneath her and they soared over the edge of a cliff. She knew she wouldn't fall, but that first moment was more than a little unnerving. Since she was lying in a prone position, it was easy to look down and see just how far the ground was beneath her. The moment of fear passed and she took in the gorgeous scenery around them. They were high in the mountains, and she could see the distant peaks, low valleys, and the far-off glimmer of blue, indicating a distant lake. Breathtaking was the only word she could think of to describe it. Her pilot shifted sideways, and her harness moved with him as they changed direction. Her heart jumped as she found that she had been right. **This** was flying. She, or rather, her pilot, was in control of the flight. All previous experiences were simply gliding or floating. This was much closer to actual flying. It was incredible. Even if this was in her imagination, it was more fantastic than she ever thought she could have imagined.

She looked around for Aragorn and Legolas, and found their gliders nearby. She was close enough to see their faces. The look on Legolas' face was nearly one of rapture, and even Aragorn seemed to be thrilled with the experience. She only allowed herself that one moment of checking on them, then abandoned all logical or rational thought, giving herself up to the sensation of soaring among the eagles. As she did that, she noticed an eagle just up ahead. Its behavior was much like that of a hang-glider, outstretched wings catching the updrafts, and changing its center of gravity to control the direction of its flight. She realized that the person who had come up with hang-gliders must have been using an eagle as the model for the device. This was something that she wished would never end. Not a word was spoken between her and the pilot, as he seemed to sense how she was feeling and left her to enjoy herself in peace. For the rest of her flight, Lauren simply felt her surroundings. For a brief moment in time, she thought she could begin to understand the elven connection to nature. She almost felt as if she could talk to the eagle or the surrounding trees and have them respond in kind. Lauren felt a pang of sorrow as she saw the ground getting closer and closer. They touched down much more gently than the hot-air balloon did, and rolled to a stop in a flat open field. The pilot helped her to disentangle herself from the glider and helped her remove the harness.

Lauren stood waiting as Aragorn and Legolas landed, removed their harnesses and walked over to join her. They were all quiet for a moment as they came to terms with the fact that they would never be the same after this. Lauren looked back up with longing in her eyes, and Aragorn knew that he had been correct. Lauren was meant to soar among the clouds, not to be bound to earth. Her spirit needed to be able to fly free with the birds. She would never be truly happy unless she had moments like that to look forward to.

Suddenly, Lauren's face paled and she swayed where she stood. Aragorn and Legolas both reached out at the same time and took hold of an elbow to support her. "What is wrong?"

Aragorn asked her in concern.

She took a few deep breaths, and they watched as the color seeped back into her face. "I don't know," she said. "I just felt kind of…dizzy for a moment. Maybe the flight did something to my sense of balance. It's nothing. I'm fine now." She decided not to mention the headache and the momentary shooting pain in her legs that had struck with the dizzy spell. They had begun to fade as well, even if they were not entirely gone. It probably wasn't anything to worry about, anyway. She looked at her watch. If she had calculated it correctly, they had just a little over an hour. That should do it.

Looking back at Aragorn and Legolas, she smiled. "Do you remember what I promised yesterday that we would do today?"

They had to think for a moment. Today had involved so much that they had almost forgotten what had been said yesterday. "You said we would ride in that machine called an airplane," Legolas said, remembering her words from yesterday.

"Yes I did," Lauren said. "And we have just enough time to give you the full experience. You see, we can't simply walk onto a plane. We'll start at the airport. Just a quick question: neither of you are carrying any hidden weapons, are you?"

They looked at her in confusion. "No," Aragorn said. "We have not felt the need to have weapons here, and when we do, we can summon them at will. Do you think we will need them?"

"No, definitely not," Lauren said, waving her hands emphatically to make her point. "Security is really tight at the airports, and anyone trying to get a weapon through could find themselves in a lot of trouble. I just wanted to avoid that potential trouble and make sure you aren't carrying anything."

As she spoke, their surroundings changed again, the mountain fading around them and a large building forming in its place. She led them through the automatic doors into the building after ascertaining that they did not have weapons on them.

Pointing to the rows of counters with the mazes of posts and ropes marking off places for lines, she started their education on what an airport was. "Those are the ticket counters. If you need to check in for a flight and send your luggage to the baggage compartment, that is where you go. The ropes are to mark off where people need to stand in line. On a busy day, you can be in line for quite awhile. Let's assume that we already have tickets." She handed them each rectangular pieces of paper with writing on them, and small cards that had a picture of each of them along with more writing.

"What is this?" Aragorn asked, looking over the small card. The image of him did not look like a painting, but them he remembered the 'photographs' that he had seen in her house and realized this must be something like that.

"That is your driver's license," Lauren said. "You can't get past security without some form of photo identification to prove that you are the person listed on the ticket. Things are strict enough now that only people who have tickets can get anywhere near the boarding areas or planes. And driver's licenses are the most common form of ID."

With that, she led them toward a uniformed man standing at the entrance to another roped off area. They followed her lead in presenting the man with their tickets and ID and were soon waved on to continue in the line. At the end of the line was a rectangular archway that looked like a doorway with no door or wall. Beside this doorway was a device with a black moving belt that ran through the device. The moving belt looked much like the device they had seen at the grocery store that Lauren had taken them to the day before. Aragorn stopped in his tracks and stared at the device in question, wondering what was supposed to go on the belt since they were not making any purchases.

"That archway is a metal detector," Lauren explained. "You have to put all metal objects that you are carrying and all bags through the X-ray machine. It will look inside the bags and jackets and other objects to make sure there are no hidden weapons. Oh, and you'll have to take off your shoes and place them on the conveyor belt as well."

"Our shoes?" Legolas asked in surprise, looking at Lauren as if she were joking, but not knowing what the joke was.

"Some idiot tried to put explosives in his shoes and blow up a plane. Ever since then, they check everyone's shoes." Lauren shook her head at the insanity of some of the people in her world.

"This form of air travel is truly so dangerous?" Aragorn asked, looking at the intense security measures being taken.

"Well, historically, it is a form of transportation prone to being targeted by terrorists because it is so vulnerable. Once you're in the air, there is no easy escape. There have been some truly horrible terrorist acts involving planes, with thousands of deaths. We all complain about the stringent security because it inconveniences us, but if it will prevent the same things from happening again, it's worth a little inconvenience." Lauren began moving again as she spoke, heading toward the security measures.

Again, they followed her lead in removing their shoes, placing all loose items on the 'conveyor belt', and walking through the metal detector. Once on the other side, they picked up their shoes and put them back on before continuing on their way. Lauren led them down a long hallway with seating areas, eating areas and shopping areas lining both sides of the walkway. There was a moving walkway that Lauren could not resist leading them onto. Stepping onto the walkway, she gestured for Aragorn and Legolas to follow her. "Come on guys, it won't bite."

Aragorn and Legolas glanced warily at each other before reluctantly stepping forward onto the walkway. Aragorn wobbled slightly at feeling the ground move beneath him, but it did not seem to bother Legolas in the least, though he did not seem to know what to think about this new invention.

"Why would such a thing be needed?" Legolas asked, looking down at his feet. "Can people not walk long distances any more?"

Lauren shrugged, turning around to face them. "Well, when you're hiking from one end of an airport to another with heavy luggage and a short amount of time, these things and escalators are greatly appreciated. And believe me, I have been one of those appreciative people on many occasions. I have a tendency to overpack." She tilted her head slightly to the side as she looked at them. "I think I blame that on Mom. She always packs more than she needs, and I took after her in that respect."

A small grin crossed Aragorn's face at her comments about her and her mother's packing habits. He had seen many of the nobility of Gondor pack far more than they needed whenever they traveled. It seemed that some things would never change.

Legolas on the other hand, caught another part of her comments. "What are these escalators?"

"They're similar to the moving sidewalk, but they're moving staircases." Lauren shrugged again and turned around as she neared the end of the sidewalk and stepped off, making sure that Aragorn and Legolas knew the 'ride' was ending. Seeing the curious and incredulous look on Legolas' face at her description of an escalator, Lauren decided that he needed to see one in person, and suddenly the airport had a second level. As they approached what was now the end of the corridor, she slowed her pace and turned around to walk backward, gesturing behind her. "That, my friends, is an escalator."

Gaping at the escalator, then looking back at the moving walkway, Legolas shook his head in disbelief. "Has the human race truly gotten so lazy that walking down a corridor or up a level of steps is requires mechanical aid?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Lauren glared at Legolas a moment before sighing. "You may not be far off the mark in calling us lazy, but I for one love having escalators to get me to the top of a long flight of stairs when I'm tired and rushed and carrying a lot of baggage with me. And you won't change my opinion of that, either."

Realizing that his comments were more than slightly rude, Legolas dropped his eyes from Lauren's for a moment before looking up to meet her gaze again. "Forgive me, I did not mean that to sound as it did. I meant no offense."

Shaking her head, Lauren waved off his apology. "I know you didn't. And, as I said, you may not be too wrong. But I forgive you. Now, would you like to try the escalator?" She stepped forward onto one of the steps. "Be careful how you place your feet." Lauren showed them how not to end up with their feet on two different steps and they were quite amazed as the steps brought them to the top of the incline. Once they were off of the escalator, Lauren checked her ticket once more, then looked up and led them to a seating area under the number 24. "Now, normally, I try to get to the airport ahead of time to make sure I'm not late. Since this is in our control, we can either board the plane now and have more time in the air, or you can look around the airport a little bit first."

"I believe I would like to take a few minutes to look around," Aragorn said, wanting to see more of this unusual place.

"Sure," Lauren replied "Go ahead." She took them to a little shop that sold magazines, souvenirs and candy. While she was there, she picked up a pack of gum. The change in altitude hadn't bothered them on the hang-gliding ride, but she hadn't thought of it, and they may not have changed altitude enough for it to be a problem. She watched Aragorn and Legolas wandering the store with some amusement. They had stopped in front of the selection of magazines, and Lauren wandered over to join them. Her first thought had been that they had gotten sidetracked by the sight of the scantily clad models on the covers of some of the magazines, but they surprised her. The magazine they were looking at was the National Enquirer. The headline read 'Bat-boy discovered in remote cave'.

"Why would they have a picture of Gollum?" Aragorn was asking. "He perished with the ring. He could not still be alive."

"Gollum?" Lauren asked, looking at the magazine in confusion.

"That cannot possibly be Gollum," Legolas said. "But I will admit that there is a resemblance. Is there any way that another form of human has been created that looks like him?"

"Oh, this person doesn't really exist," Lauren said. "The picture is a fake."

"How can the picture be fake?" Aragorn asked. "You said that they capture images as they are."

"Well, they do, but people can change the way they look with certain programs on the computer. Trust me, nobody believes anything they read in this paper. I occasionally buy one if I want a laugh, but that's all they're good for. Come on, we should probably board the plane if we want any time in the air."

They both looked back over their shoulders at the paper before following her out of the store. She led them to the boarding gate where they had to show their tickets once more to get on the plane. After walking down a long hallway, they entered a narrow vehicle through a rounded doorway. Lauren looked at the numbers on their tickets and led them to two window seats in the first few rows of seats. She declined a window seat and sat next to Aragorn. Legolas was in the row behind them. Stretching her legs out in front of her, she relaxed back into the plush leather seat. "I know you two don't know enough about flying in planes to appreciate this, but I booked us seats in first class. These are the most luxurious seats on the plane."

"What are the other seats like?" Legolas asked.

"Go look through that curtain," Lauren said, pointing back over her shoulder.

Legolas did as she asked, and saw how much smaller the seats seemed, how closely they were packed together. "I am glad you chose these seats," he said. "There would be no room to stretch out my legs in those other seats."

"Tell me about it," Lauren said. "The one time I got an unexpected upgrade to first class, I was spoiled for any future flights in coach class." She told them that they would have to buckle up in this vehicle as well. She showed them how to do so, and a flight attendant soon came up to them with an offer of a glass of champagne. "Thank you," Lauren said, taking a glass and sipping it.

The other two also took a glass and tested it. "It is an unusual flavor, and it has bubbles," Legolas said. "Why do so many of your beverages have bubbles?"

"Not a clue," Lauren said as she put the glass down and leaned back in her seat. Since she was controlling things, the boarding went very quickly, with only a few people other than themselves getting on. Soon, they were backing away from the gate and taxiing toward the runway. Lauren handed each of them a piece of gum.

"What is this?" Aragorn asked, looking at her as she demonstrated unwrapping the gum and chewing on it.

"It's gum," Lauren answered. "The abrupt change in altitude as a plane takes off and lands has the tendency to hurt people's ears by messing with the pressure in their inner ears. The chewing motion that gum needs helps you be able to pop your ears and keep them from getting too painful. Trust me, just do it."

As in so much here, they followed her lead. The flight attendant had taken their glasses before they started taxiing so they didn't have to worry about holding onto them. Lauren watched Aragorn as the plane sped up and began to leave the ground. Aragorn's hands gripped the armrests tightly as he was pressed back into his seat by the acceleration. He didn't look like he was having too much fun. She glanced back at Legolas and found that he had placed his hands over his ears. Apparently, the engine noise was too loud. Out of consideration, she quieted the engines, wishing it was something she could do in reality. Legolas looked over at her in thanks, then looked back out the window as the ground dropped away from them very rapidly. It was not long before they no longer felt the acceleration and were able to lean forward without fighting to do so. Looking back again, she noticed Legolas grimacing and putting his hands to his ears again.

"Is the pressure in your ears getting painful?" she asked Legolas. At his nod, she showed him a few methods to use to get his ears to pop. After he was able to ease the pain, he looked back at her a little accusingly. "I did warn you," Lauren said. She gestured to the window. "Take a look."

Legolas turned his attention to the window and his eyes widened. The city below them, like several of the cities he had seen in Lauren's world had contained some very tall buildings. From this height, they looked like nothing more than children's toys. The cars on the roadways below them looked like insects traveling along their way. The land around the city stretched out to the horizon in a patchwork of fields, housing areas, wooded areas, and water that must be lakes. Aragorn was also staring out his window in amazement. His ears had only bothered him momentarily, and he had gone back to looking out of his window very quickly. He glanced upward and saw that they were approaching some fluffy clouds. They were about to fly among the clouds! "Legolas, look up," Aragorn said softly.

Lauren watched them fondly as they watched the wisps of cloud float past their windows. She thought they should have a chance to see the mountains from above, so changed the shape of the land beneath them.

"Look, Aragorn, there are mountains that seem no more than ant hills."

Lauren smiled to herself. Aragorn and Legolas were as excited as children taking their first plane ride. She was glad she had been able to give them these experiences. She rubbed her leg absently where a dull pain had settled. At least she was sitting down and would not have to do much moving around for awhile.

Looking back over at Aragorn, she saw him talking with Legolas about being able to see the clouds from above, and the shadows they cast on the ground below. As she watched, Aragorn began to fade from her sight. "Aragorn," she said to get his attention. He and Legolas both looked back at her. "You're waking up," she commented. "I'm sorry that your first airplane ride is ending, but I'll see you both tomorrow night?"

They nodded and said their goodbyes before they faded from view. Lauren sighed and hit the call button. When the flight attendant arrived, Lauren asked if she had any aspirin that she could take. After swallowing the pills, she relaxed back into her seat again and tried to think of a way to entertain Aragorn and Legolas tomorrow night.


	15. Modern Medicine

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. This chapter includes a discussion of a song by Sarah McLachlan 'Drifting'. I don't have any rights to the song.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Fifteen - Modern Medicine

When Aragorn and Legolas appeared, they found themselves surrounded by trees with the mountains rising high around them. Legolas turned to Aragorn with hope in his eyes.

"Do you think we will be able to fly again tonight? I did so enjoy that." Legolas gestured with his arms to indicate the height of the mountain, giving the impression that if he could, he would fly with just his arms.

Aragorn gave him a wry smile. "Yes, I did rather get that impression last night, and today, when you could not stop talking about the experience." Crossing his arms, Aragorn raised his eyebrow at his friend.

Legolas looked indignant for a moment. "It was truly enjoyable. Should I not tell those who know about our excursions here?"

"I do not mind you telling Arwen and Gimli, but I would wish you to refrain from saying anything about flying within Eldarion's hearing." Aragorn shook his head at the thought of what that might lead to.

"Why?"

Aragorn saw the confusion on Legolas' face and gave him an exasperated look. "What do you think Eldarion will do if he hears you talk about humans and elves being able to fly?"

Understanding spread across Legolas' face, and he nodded his head briefly to Aragorn. "Try to fly; without wings."

"Exactly," Aragorn exclaimed, gesturing as he spoke. "And I would rather not pick up the pieces of my son after that disastrous attempt."

Legolas gave him a wry grin. "Very well, I shall say nothing to suggest that flight is possible near Eldarion." He looked around at their surroundings. "Should we try to find Lauren?"

After listening for a moment, Aragorn smiled. "Somehow, I do not think that will be a difficult task."

Smiling, Legolas nodded to Aragorn and swept an arm out in the direction of the music, indicating that Aragorn should lead the way. He had been too focused on the thoughts of flight earlier to hear the music drifting toward them on the wind.

As they followed the sound, they could hear the words that Lauren sang. The music was soft, and her voice seemed haunted, sad, for some reason. She sang of drifting along and not wanting to return, but having people who loved her and who were asking her to come home. ('Drifting' by Sarah McLachlan)

Coming out of a clearing of trees, they saw Lauren standing at the edge of a cliff, gazing off into the distance. The view from the cliff edge was breathtaking. The cliff dropped off steeply, falling into a lush green valley. At one end of the valley was a great waterfall ending in a river that wound through the trees. Off in the distance, more mountains capped in white could be seen.

Aragorn and Legolas came to a stop beside Lauren, taking in the view for a long moment in silence. Glancing sideways at Lauren, Aragorn noticed that her eyes were slightly glazed over, as if she were not seeing the scene in front of her. After glancing questioningly at Legolas and getting a puzzled glance in return, Aragorn reached out and rested his hand gently on Lauren's shoulder. "Lauren?"

Her eyes cleared as she turned to face him, giving him a wan smile. "Hi," she said softly.

"What is wrong?" Aragorn queried as the healer in him came to the fore. She was rather pale, and there were lines of pain evident on her face. She seemed subdued compared to her normal manner. Unfortunately, he knew she was as stubborn about admitting pain and troubles as he and Legolas could be, and he expected no answer. Therefore, he was surprised when she did not evade his question.

"I think our time is growing short," she answered. "I have not been feeling well since shortly before you left last time. Pain seems to come and go in my head, legs, and ribcage, and at times I have felt dizzy and nauseous." Her voice was soft, and Aragorn could tell that even now, she was in some pain.

Aragorn reached out and placed the back of his hand against her forehead to see if she was running a fever. She let him check, then brushed his hand gently away.

"There is nothing you can do about it, I'm sure. With this merely being a dream world, I have no physical body for you to treat. Only one thing explains these symptoms. The line between reality and this world is growing thinner. It probably won't be long before I wake up."

"You do not sound excited at the prospect," Legolas noted, staring at her face.

She sighed softly before answering. "Yes, I do want to wake up. I want to see my family and friends again. But with the pain that I'm feeling, I have to wonder what it is I will be waking up to. Do you really think I'll be able to just go back to living my life like it was before? I'll admit, my life wasn't perfect, but I don't want to think about not being able to go back to it." She gave them both a lopsided grin. "And then there's the fact that once I wake up, I'll likely never see either of you again. I kind of like our time together, and don't want it to end, either."

Placing his hand back on her shoulder, Aragorn looked into her eyes. "We will also miss our time together, but you do not belong here. You belong in your world, with your family. Though we will miss you, we will be satisfied knowing you are continuing to live your life as it was meant to be."

Lauren looked away without answering, and Legolas knew she did not want to discuss this any longer at the moment. She still hesitated to discuss her innermost feelings with them, even after all she had shared with them about her life. Taking pity on her, he decided to change the subject. "Did you have anything planned for this night? I would not argue if you wished to fly again."

A slow grin spread across her face. "Well, I have to admit that that's how I spent most of the time you were gone. I loved hang-gliding so much, I went back and had a nice long flight. It was really great." The tension eased from her posture and expression as she spoke, and the lines of pain smoothed out as she turned her attention away from her physical condition.

"I am rather surprised you did not try to turn yourself into a hawk or an eagle and fly as a bird," Aragorn commented, looking at her face and going along with the change in subject.

Color suffused her face as she looked back at Aragorn. "Well, actually I did try that. But it didn't work too well. My mind is apparently rooted too much in reality. All the places we've visited have come from my mind. I've actually been to these places. I know how things look, how they smell, what the weather feels like, so I can re-create them very accurately. But I know full well that people can't turn into birds, so my mind wouldn't let me do it. I bet that if I were to step off this cliff, I'd plummet to the ground because my mind tells me that that is what would happen in reality. I'm not about to try it," she hastened to reassure them as she saw the sudden concern in their faces. "I'm just trying to explain how things work here. Do you think your mind is fanciful enough to allow you to fly?" She looked back and forth between the two of them.

Aragorn thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "No, I do not believe humans can change form and fly as an eagle, either."

Personally, Legolas thought it might be interesting to try, but knew that Lauren would have come up with some plans for their time together, and did not wish to interrupt those plans. He shook his head in the negative as well.

"So what will we see this evening?" Aragorn asked her. "More distant and far-away lands?"

Shaking her head, Lauren commented, "Not tonight, though there is still so much in my world to see. There are cities and villages in Italy and France that I've loved and haven't been able to show you. I've been to London and Stonehenge, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and many other places that would fascinate you. The cultures that I've seen are so far removed from yours and even mine that I feel you would be amazed with even a small glimpse. There are Great Pyramids created thousands of years ago, a Great Wall in China that stretches for thousands of miles and the Taj Mahal in India, a majestic building built as a mausoleum to house the body of an Empress. These are all things I would love to show you." She paused a moment in thought. "Though since I've never seen the last three places myself, the experience would probably be quite flat in comparison to our other visits. I've only seen pictures and images on TV of them, you see." A smirk crossed her face. "I had thought of taking you to Disney Land, but I'm not that much of a sadist. I can't imagine you enjoying that at all."

"What is this Disney Land?" Aragorn asked cautiously. He wasn't sure he wanted to know from the comments she had made.

"It's a place called an amusement park, but I don't think you'd find it amusing at all. There are huge, exciting rides called roller-coasters as well as many other types of rides, games to play, lots of junk food to eat, places to shop, and hundreds of screaming and laughing kids." Her lips quirked upward as she saw the two of them beginning to form a mental picture of the place she described. "I doubt you've seen so much noise and chaos away from a battlefield, so I decided that it would be better not to show you such a place."

"I thank you for that," Legolas said with a sincere, heartfelt expression of gratitude on his face.

A smile crossed her face, then faded as a soft sigh escaped her. "There is too much to see and not nearly enough time. But one thing I promised myself was that I would show Aragorn the state of modern medicine before our time was ended. As a healer, I felt he would be as fascinated by that as by anything else."

Aragorn's eyes lit up as he heard the plans for tonight. "I would indeed love to see what your healers know."

She held up a cautionary hand. "Keep in mind that my own knowledge of medicine is rather rudimentary. All I know is what I've experienced in person, what I learned in school a long time ago, and what I read in the news. I have never studied medicine. I just want to make that clear."

Nodding in understanding, Aragorn waited for her to continue.

"Good. Now, Legolas, I don't know how interested you are in this subject, but I hope you won't be too bored following along with us." Her expression was uncertain as she glanced at the elf.

"I may not have the skills and knowledge that Aragorn and other healers have, but I have had to help out many times in the aftermath of battles. I have no small interest in the subject myself." Legolas nodded at Lauren to reassure her that he had not protests against her plans for night.

"Good," Lauren repeated, sounding more satisfied. "I debated with myself for a long time about whether or not to teach you this first subject. It is something I learned a long time ago, in school, and think it is something everyone should know. But then I wondered if I would be altering history irrevocably by teaching you something that was not known so long ago."

Aragorn frowned and crossed his arms. "You have shown us so many things that are not known in my time. Why would this be any different?"

Holding his gaze, Lauren asked a question of her own. "What I show you can save lives. Having this knowledge, would you be able to not use it?"

It was not long before Aragorn dropped his gaze. "No, if I am fighting to save a life, I will use all knowledge at my disposal."

Nodding to herself as he confirmed her opinion of him, Lauren continued. "As I thought. Most of what I've shown you so far, you either do not have the technology to re-create, or I trust that you will hold to your promise and let the knowledge go no further. With lives hanging in the balance, I felt sure that you would do anything, even break a promise to me, to save someone."

"And yet you still intend to show us?" Aragorn asked, not denying that he would break his promise in such circumstances.

"Well, I won't ask you to make such a promise with this knowledge," Lauren said. "I've thought about this long and hard, and I don't think I can withhold such a simple method of saving a life. Who is to say that the whole purpose of our coming into contact wasn't to show you this very thing? I don't know if you will use it to save the life of someone who was supposed to die, or to prevent a life from ending too soon that was not meant to end." She waved a hand dismissively as the sentence came out sounding not quite right. "All I can do is teach you and leave the rest in the hands of Ilúvatar. You can use the knowledge as you see fit. I only ask that you do not teach it to other healers. The knowledge must end with you." Lauren held his gaze firmly, impressing upon him the importance of her request.

Aragorn thought about that for a long moment. He would be given free permission to use anything she showed him, but how could he not pass that knowledge on? Would it be better not to have the knowledge and resist the temptation to break his word to her? But how could he pass up on the chance to know more about how to save lives? Finally, he nodded slowly, having made up his mind. "I agree to your terms. You have my vow that though I use your knowledge freely, I will not instruct others in what you show me." A thought came to him, and he had to ask. "But what will happen if I am seen using your knowledge? If others see me using it, and thus learn what it is you will show us?"

Lauren shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Come up with something. Say it made sense to try, but don't teach them."

Aragorn shot Legolas a helpless confused look. What was she about to show them, and was it really worth this entire debate? He finally asked the question. "What is it that you keep referring to?"

"The methods I am about to show you go by the names CPR and the Heimlich maneuver. They can be used in some circumstances to keep someone breathing, to restart a heart, or to save someone who is choking to death. And the good thing about them is that you need nothing beyond your own body to use them."

Aragorn's eyebrows rose in amazement and curiosity. These methods did sound like something he wanted to learn. "I would be honored if you would show us these methods."

Lauren gestured around them, and the mountaintop they stood on disappeared to be replaced by a small room with small desks and chairs scattered around. A woman with a large case stood in the middle of the room. "I don't feel that I'm qualified to teach you myself, but I'll go through the training with you again." She turned to face the woman in the middle of the room, and gave her a nod to start.

"Hi, I'm Mrs. Visconti. I'm here today to teach you CPR, which stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the Heimlich maneuver, which can be used to save a choking victim." She leaned down and opened the case at her feet. Aragorn and Legolas watched with no little surprise as she pulled out a life-size doll and placed it on the floor at their feet.

Lauren leaned over and explained to them. "That's the practice dummy. When you use CPR, you have to press pretty forcefully on someone's chest. You can't do that with a real person, or you could cause their heart to stop beating or cause problems with the rhythm of the heart. So, these dummies were made to practice on."

Aragorn nodded like he understood, but he couldn't seem to take his eyes off the pseudo human at their feet. He looked up when he heard the instructor clear her throat disapprovingly. He suddenly felt like he was back in his lessons as a child in Rivendell and gave her his full attention.

She gestured for them to sit at the desks and proceeded to teach them the full method of what was called CPR. Lauren leaned over at one point and whispered to Aragorn. "I think you can forgo calling 911. First off, you don't have phones, and second, I highly doubt anyone would come." Lauren looked up guiltily when the instructor stopped speaking and glared at her. "Sorry." After that, Lauren kept quiet for the rest of the lesson.

Finally, after going over all of the details, which Aragorn actually thought made a lot of sense, it was time to practice on the 'dummy'. Since this was largely done for Aragorn's benefit, he was the first to try it. He knelt down beside the dummy and ran through the 'A-B-C's' of CPR in his mind before attempting the method. 'A' stood for airway and consisted of placing the victim flat on a hard surface, asking them if they were OK, calling 911, which he still did not understand, and then tilting the person's head back to fully open their airway, after checking that there were no foreign bodies. He started by doing these steps, finally placing one hand on the dummy's head and the other under his chin and tilting his head back. 'B' stood for breathing. The main steps here were taking several seconds to look, listen and feel for signs of breath from the victim. If the victim was not breathing, the next step was to pinch the victim's nose closed, place his mouth over the victim's mouth, and give him two full breaths from his own body. The next stage of this method involved 'C', circulation. First, he checked for a pulse by checking at the throat. Aragorn was very practiced at this particular step. As expected, the dummy had no pulse, so he began the chest compressions as he had been instructed. It was this step that could cause harm to a living victim and necessitated the practice dummy. He had been instructed that he was to perform fifteen compressions to every two breaths and continue until advanced life support was available.

Aragorn made it through the steps flawlessly the first time. Knowing that this would be the only training he ever had, though, he made sure to go over it many times, practicing until it came naturally. He wanted this method at hand and to come as second nature when he needed it. When he was satisfied, and only then, did he allow Legolas to try his hand at it. Though not a healer, Legolas also easily picked up on the method, and Aragorn watched until he was sure Legolas would also be able to use the method naturally in the middle of a battlefield if necessary. Lauren passed up her turn, knowing she had just gotten re-certified a few months prior to her accident.

The instructor then pulled out a child-sized dummy, and Aragorn and Legolas both went through the practice with the few changes that a child required. When Aragorn felt that they had learned the alterations enough and would be competent to tend to either an adult or a child, he allowed them to move on to the other method, the one for choking.

As they were shown, the Heimlich maneuver was only to be used when the victim was choking and could not breathe or speak. If the person was breathing, this method was not to be used. But if their throat was completely blocked, this could save their lives. They were instructed to stand behind the choking person, make a fist and place their fist, thumb side inward, against the victim's upper abdomen, below the ribcage and above the navel. Once they were positioned correctly, they then grasped their fist with their other hand and pressed into the abdomen with a quick upward thrust. This could be repeated until the object was expelled. Aragorn and Legolas were instructed to practice on each other, just not actually pressing very hard. They used the dummy to use the method for an unconscious person. This same method was used to expel water from a drowning victim's lungs, making sure the victim's head was turned to the side to allow the water to escape.

When they finally finished their lessons, Aragorn felt that he had indeed learned something that he would find very handy in his future. He only wished he would be able to teach others. Such small simple things as what they had learned here could save many lives. But he could understand Lauren's fear. If these methods became common usage long before they were invented, the world could be drastically changed. As they exited the building, Aragorn came to appreciate just how much trust Lauren had placed in him by showing him these things. "What else do you have planned for us?" he asked lightly, thinking that she had shown them all she would of medicine.

"I thought a visit to a hospital might be a treat for you," she said lightly. "Though I don't usually think of them that way. Most of the time, I only visit a hospital if someone is sick or injured, though there are happy times too, like the birth of a baby. I think we'll start at the nursery."

Aragorn's eyebrows rose in surprise. Apparently, they were to see a great deal more tonight. The world seemed to shimmer around them as a large building sprang into existence in front of them. 'That was unusual', Aragorn thought to himself. That was not an effect they often saw when the scenery changed around them.

Lauren led them up to the automatic double doors, and stopped an inch in front of the doors when they refused to open. She stepped back a couple of paces then stepped forward again, and still the doors did not open. Stepping to the side, Lauren looked up at the sensors that told the mechanism when to open the door. "Maybe it's not working or something," Lauren commented softly. Aragorn and Legolas stood beside her, out of the way of the doors. "But why would they be out of order in my dreams?"

Aragorn had no answer to that. He turned as he saw a couple, the woman obviously with child, walk toward them. "Pardon me," he began, "you should know that the door does not seem to be working."

The couple continued as if they had not heard them, and approached the door. It opened as they approached, and they walked into the building as if nothing odd had happened.

"What was that?" Lauren asked, shaking her head in confusion. "It was as if they didn't hear you, and the door worked for them." She walked into the middle of the doorway again, and the doors did not move. Even when she jumped up and down waving her arms in front of the sensors, the doors remained stubbornly closed. "Well this is odd," Lauren commented under her breath. After staring at the doors for a moment more, she slowly reached a hand out to touch the glass. Inhaling sharply, she watched as her hand passed through the door. A sharp jerk brought her hand back to her side of the door, and she spun to gaze at Aragorn and Legolas with wide eyes. "What is going on here?"

Walking forward, Aragorn did as Lauren had just done, and extended his hand toward the door. His hand also went through, and he took a step forward to see what would happen. He easily passed through the doors and stood on the other side. Turning back, he saw Lauren and Legolas looking at him in amazement. He held out a hand to Lauren, extending his hand back through the glass. She cautiously took his hand and he drew her through the door to stand beside him. Her eyes were wide with confusion. Aragorn raised an eyebrow at Legolas, who then took a breath and walked through the doors to join them on the other side.

"This is new," Lauren breathed softly. She looked around and saw someone sitting at the receptionist's desk. Glancing sideways at Aragorn and Legolas, she strode forward and tried to get the person's attention. "Excuse me, miss? Can you help me?" The woman made no sign that she even heard Lauren. Lauren raised her eyebrow in a manner reminiscent of Aragorn and Elrond. "Can you hear me? Excuse me?" When waving her hand in front of the woman's face garnered no reaction, she placed her hand on the counter to lean forward and peer into the woman's eyes. Her hand went through the desk, and Lauren stumbled forward, thrown off balance. Looking down, she noticed that she was now standing in the middle of the desk.

Aragorn and Legolas stared at the odd sight of Lauren's upper body protruding from the top of the desk. The rest of her body was lost within the desk. She looked back at them in panic, then lurched backwards a couple of steps, throwing her body away from the desk. After a quick pat down to reassure her that she hadn't lost any body parts, she slowly walked back to where Aragorn and Legolas stood.

"OK," she said faintly. "I have no idea what is going on here. I certainly would not have had us appear in the hospital as some kind of ghosts or some bodiless beings." She reached out and touched Aragorn's hand to double-check that they could at least still touch each other. A soft sigh of relief escaped her as she felt his hand solidly under hers. "So, we need to figure this out." A jerk of her head indicated a quiet place with many chairs gathered around. The three of them crossed to the waiting area she had indicated.

Lauren paced back and forth as she tried to reason through things. "OK, for some reason I haven't quite figured out, we can't physically interact with anything here. This is different from anything else I have encountered in this dream world. So why is it different? I just wanted to show you what a hospital is like in today's world. This is the hospital closest to my house, and I've visited a friend or two here. One of my co-workers had a baby, so I know what the nursery and that area looks like. My doctor has privileges here, though his actual office is across the street, and I've been here for various tests over the past few years. I could wander the halls easily, but there are areas that the casual observer isn't allowed to go. I suppose maybe I've watched too much 'Quantum Leap' in the past and decided subconsciously that the only way we could observe what I wanted to show you is by being insubstantial, invisible holograms." She paused a moment to let that thought sink in. "That has to be it. I created the scene, not by the rules I consciously thought about, but by rules that would allow us to see more of the hospital."

"A hologram?" Aragorn asked curiously. "What is that?"

"It's a three-dimensional representation of an object," Lauren tried to explain. "In the TV show I mentioned, the hologram could only be seen by the lead of the show. All you really need to understand is that nobody here can see us, and we can't interact with anything. We may have to figure out the rules along the way as we go, but this will work better. We could hardly have walked into patient's rooms or an operating room or anything without being questioned if people could see us." She gestured for them to follow her. "We're near the nursery, so we might as well start there."

Aragorn was not quite sure her reasoning made sense, but it was the only explanation they had at the moment. Shrugging slightly, he allowed Lauren to lead them down a long hallway to a set of swinging double doors. She hesitated for a minute before stepping forward through the doors. Aragorn and Legolas glanced at each other before following her. Walking through solid objects was a new experience for all of them and would take some getting used to. After going through the doors, she turned left into another hallway and led them to another door.

Beyond this door, they found themselves in a room with several clear, freestanding bassinets scattered around. A baby occupied each bassinet. Aragorn smiled at the look on Lauren's face as she walked over and looked down at the nearest baby. She reached down as if to touch his hand, then hesitated and pulled her hand away. Aragorn and Legolas moved over to stand beside her and look at the baby.

The baby they were looking at was wearing a small blue cap on his head and was covered by a soft blanket. He was sleeping peacefully. Watching the child sleep, Aragorn was reminded of when Eldarion was this age. "I can remember watching Eldarion sleep like this," Aragorn commented. "It seems so long ago now."

Smiling softly, Lauren agreed. "I used to watch both my niece and nephew like this. I was at the hospital when both of them were born."

"Would you like to have children of your own?" Aragorn questioned in curiosity, tilting his head sideways to look at her.

Lauren gave a noncommittal shrug. "Maybe someday." Her voice gave away nothing to indicate how she felt on the subject.

Legolas had been looking around the very sterile room. "Why are these children here? Would they not be better off with their parents? I cannot imagine a child thriving in this atmosphere."

"They aren't usually here for long," Lauren explained. "After a child is born, he or she and the mother are kept here for a pre-determined length of time until it is determined that they are both healthy enough to go home. The mothers often keep the babies in their room for most of the time. They are returned to the nursery when the mother needs to sleep or bathe, though, and I think at other times, while the nurses keep watch over them."

"I would hope they have a system for noting which child belongs with which mother," Aragorn commented.

Moving to another bassinet, Lauren pointed at the band circling the exposed ankle of the infant. "Each child and mother are given bands which have their information on it. And each bassinet has a tag with their name and birth date on it as well. Though there have been cases of mix-ups, they are extremely rare."

"Mix-ups?" Aragorn asked in horror. "You mean that parents have been given the wrong child?"

Shrugging helplessly, Lauren wasn't quite sure how to answer that. "Well, I don't know of any cases personally, but I have heard of such things happening. I have to admit though, it seems to happen much more in fictional stories than reality. Writers seem to think it is a good dramatic effect to have children switched at birth." She didn't think her explanation reassured them, but she didn't have any solid facts at hand on this subject. All she knew was what she had heard from the news and media.

"Do people not use midwives and have children in their homes?" Aragorn asked. To his mind, that would avoid the possibility of any 'mix-ups' and would be much more comfortable.

"Not many people choose to do that, though I'm sure some still do," Lauren mused. "Most women would prefer to be in a hospital, though. It may be sterile and not the best atmosphere, but if anything goes wrong, they can be rushed into surgery for an emergency cesarean section." Seeing the blank looks on their faces, she hastened to explain the term. "The child can be surgically cut out of the mother. It's a last resort, as any surgery has the possibility of complications due to infection, reaction to anesthetic, or other unexpected problems. But many women have had their lives and the lives of their children saved by having the capabilities of a state of the art hospital handy. Women can still die in childbirth here, but it's not very common. I feel confident in saying that the incidence of women or children dying during childbirth in hospitals is much lower than it was in your time."

A small smile crossed her lips. "There's another part of the nursery you should see." She looked around as if getting her bearings then gestured to a wall to her left. Walking through it, they found themselves in another room with clear freestanding bassinets. Unlike in the previous room, most of these bassinets were not open to the air. Some of them were covered with a tent of clear material and had tubes and canisters connected to them. Moving closer, Aragorn looked into one of these bassinets. The child inside was smaller than any living child he had ever seen. She lay still, sleeping, but there were tubes connected to her feet and arms. There were circular openings in the clear tent surrounding the child, but they were closed at the moment.

"How can a child be born so small and still survive?" Aragorn asked. He would almost be able to hold this child completely in his two cupped hands.

"All the equipment you see here is meant to support the lives of children born prematurely or those who have health problems when they are born. The tents around them are incubators to provide warmth and to protect them from germs that might cause illness or infection. Most of them will have a tube in their nose or mouth that runs to their stomach and feeds them. A lot of preemies have underdeveloped lungs, so they have monitors attached to them to make sure they are breathing properly and warn the nurses if there is a problem. The babies here are very closely monitored to help them have the best chance of surviving and having a healthy life. Now, I won't say that babies born very early have an easy time of things. Often, there are health problems later in life, but more premature babies can survive now than ever could before."

It was a long time before Aragorn and Legolas could take their eyes off of the tiny infant. It amazed the both of them that this child would have a chance to live. Modern medicine had truly come a long way to allow such a thing. Aragorn finally asked a question that had occurred to him during Lauren's explanation. "You said something about germs causing infection or illness? What are germs?"

Lauren's eyebrows rose abruptly. She forgot that Aragorn came from a time before germs had been discovered. She didn't have much medical knowledge at all. How could she explain this? "Well, germs are organisms so small that they cannot be seen. They can be airborne or passed through touch. You've surely noticed that if one person has a cold, those near that person usually end up with a cold?" Aragorn nodded. "Well, the germs of the first person are passed to other people when he sneezes or coughs near others. There are germs all over the place, so it is very important to wash your hands frequently, especially in hospitals."

"Ada always insisted on washing before and after treating anyone in the healing rooms," Aragorn commented, looking with more respect at the tents surrounding the infants.

"He sounds wise," Lauren said. "Even if he didn't know about microscopic organisms, he knew the link between cleanliness and avoiding infection."

"Yes," Aragorn said. "So the tents covering them also act to keep out these airborne organisms?"

"Yes," Lauren said, happy to see how quickly Aragorn was picking up on the concept. It occurred to her for a moment to worry that she was telling them far too much about medical concepts they had never heard of before. But most healers of his time would probably not believe in some invisible organisms causing infection and illness. Besides, he had sworn to her that he would not teach others what he learned here.

"This is truly fascinating, Lauren. Though I would not be able to duplicate much of the 'equipment' here, I am learning much that could be of use. May we observe a surgery so that I may compare the methods that I have already seen to those used by your doctors?" Aragorn was fascinated by all that they had seen here, and wanted to learn more. There was so much that Lauren took for granted that seemed quite amazing to him.

Legolas, not being the healer in the group, had not had much to contribute to the conversation. He was wandering the room, looking at the few infants in their incubators and marveling at the idea that medicine had come so far as to be able to save the lives of these tiny children. He looked up when he heard Aragorn ask Lauren if they would be able to observe the doctors performing surgery. The thought did not especially excite him. Though he had participated in treating many battle injuries in the past, he did not enjoy watching surgeries.

Lauren paled slightly at the thought. "Well, I don't know that I'll be able to come up with a realistic surgery for you to watch. I've seen some stuff on TV, but I don't know how realistic it is. And truthfully, I can't stand the sight of blood."

That comment prompted Aragorn to raise an eyebrow at her. A descendant of Elrond, one of the greatest healers in Middle-earth, and she could not stand the sight of blood?

She shrugged at his look. "I know what you're thinking, Aragorn, and just remember that a lot of years and generations have passed between you and me. I went into computer programming rather than medicine for a reason." When Aragorn's look of disbelief turned to disappointment, she relented. "OK, fine, I'll see what I can find." Leading them through the walls of the neo-natal intensive care unit, she found a hallway with signs on the walls. After following the signs through the hallway, she found that they had to go up to the second floor. Walking over to the elevator, she tried to push the button to summon the elevator, with no success. "Oh, yeah," she said as her finger went through the button. She stared at the button for a moment, stumped, before turning back to Aragorn and Legolas. "OK, we seem to have a problem. Since we can't touch anything, we will may have to wait for someone else to come along, and push the button for us to hitch a ride. At that point, we will have to hope they're heading to where we are. Our other option is to find the stairs."

"I believe we should find the stairs," Legolas said. "I do not know how large this hospital is, but how long do you believe it will be before we find someone going to the same place we are?"

"You're right," Lauren agreed. "It could be awhile. The stairs are usually close to the elevators, so it should be around here somewhere." After a moment of looking, Aragorn found a door with the word STAIRS next to it. They walked through the door and Lauren started to lead the way up the stairs. Her foot sank through the first step and she stumbled forward a little, not expecting that. "Well, that's great," she exclaimed, getting frustrated with the laws of this new world. "Now what?" She turned to face Aragorn and Legolas, hoping they might have an idea about how to proceed.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, trying to figure out how to climb stairs that they couldn't touch. Finally, Aragorn gestured for Lauren to join him and Legolas, and stop standing in the stairs. "This world seems to operate with different rules than we are used to," Aragorn started.

"Yeah," Lauren said slowly. They had already established that fact.

"But previously, if we wanted to climb a set of stairs, we only had to believe that they were there. Perhaps we must try to bridge the chasm between the world that we see and the world that we can feel."

"OK, I'm with you in principle, but I don't see what you're actually proposing we try." Lauren frowned as she tried to follow his train of thought.

"Believe that there are stairs where we see them," Aragorn said simply.

"So by our belief, we'll be able to touch it?" Lauren asked skeptically. "I'm not sure that will do it."

"We can only try," Legolas pointed out. "If it does not work, we will be in no different position than we are now."

"True," Lauren conceded the point, shrugging one shoulder.

They all stood back and stared at the stairs, concentrating on believing that there was a flight of stairs there. Aragorn was the first to step forward and place his foot on a step. It did not fall through. As he climbed several steps, he looked back toward Legolas and Lauren and encouraged them to try it.

With some hesitation, Lauren took a step forward and placed her foot on the first step. When she felt the step beneath her foot, she looked up at Aragorn in surprise. "It worked!"

"Did I not tell you?" Aragorn asked smugly. They climbed the stairs to the second floor quickly. Each was secretly afraid the stairs would disappear beneath their feet, but would not admit it. Only after they walked through the door onto the second floor did Lauren allow a soft breath of relief.

Following the signs to the surgery wing, they found themselves standing in front of a door that read 'Authorized Admittance Only'. Lauren walked through the door, trailed by Aragorn and Legolas. She picked a door at random and walked through. Seeing surgeons surrounding a table and nurses scurrying around handling various instruments, she looked back through the door and gestured for Aragorn and Legolas to join her. "I found an ongoing surgery. Come on in." After they walked through the door, they stood in a small room with a sink where people would wash up and don sterile garb before entering the clean room where the actual surgery took place. She took a moment to explain the purpose of this room, then walked through the door into the surgical room. Lauren had no desire to venture near enough to see anything. She gestured to the television monitors that showed a view of the inside of the patient's body. This was apparently an endoscopic surgery. Unfortunately, with Lauren's limited medical knowledge, she could not tell them what they were seeing. She and Legolas stood back and watched the monitor while Aragorn drifted closer to better hear what the doctors were saying.

When Aragorn got close enough to see the patient, he saw that the doctors had not cut the patient open to the air, but had made a few small incisions in his side, and had tubes inserted into these incisions. The doctors did not seem to be looking at the patient, but rather at the television screens. Aragorn walked up to stand next to the doctor and watched him operating some controls as he looked at the screen.

"There it is," the doctor said in satisfaction. "I see the occlusion." Aragorn watched as the doctor manipulated the controls, and the image on the screen changed. Not knowing exactly what he was watching, but being fascinated nevertheless, he continued to watch the screen. As he continued to watch and listen, he slowly figured out that he was watching the doctors graft a blood vessel into place to enable the blood flow to go around a blockage in an artery. He stood there and watched in amazement as the surgery proceeded without difficulty. Once the surgeons were satisfied and began to pull the tubes out, Aragorn moved back to join Legolas and Lauren. He told them what he had witnessed.

Lauren nodded. "They must have been doing an endoscopic coronary bypass surgery. I've never seen one before. I'm actually surprised that you saw so many details. I only know of the procedure. They use cameras and small instruments inside the body without having to cut the person open. It allows for a quicker recovery." Her forehead furrowed in thought as she pondered the fact that Aragorn had just witnessed details of a surgery she had never seen before. This could not be coming completely from her mind, then. There was something else going on here. She was silent as she led the way out of the surgery wing.

Deciding that it would be easier to catch an elevator to the lobby from here than to try to catch an elevator to a specific floor, they stood in the hallway in front of the bank of elevators. The doors to an elevator opened, and a woman with blonde hair and brown eyes stepped out of the elevator. Aragorn thought she looked familiar, and had his thoughts confirmed when he heard Lauren whisper a word.

"Mom?"


	16. A Dose of Reality

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Sixteen - A Dose of Reality 

The woman that Lauren had called her mother stepped off the elevator and walked between them, turned left and headed down a hallway. Lauren turned and followed her automatically. Aragorn and Legolas looked at each other before hurrying to follow her. Lauren trailed unthinkingly after her mother until she pushed through a set of double doors halfway down the hallway. When they reached the doors marked with the letters ICU, Lauren stopped so suddenly that Aragorn ran into her back before he was able to stop. She didn't even notice.

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked in concern as he reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder.

Her face was pale when she turned back to face them. "I just figured out what is going on. There's a reason we can't interact with anything here and how that surgery showed things I have no knowledge of. Aragorn, we're not in the dream world anymore. We're in my world. Somehow, we found our way into my reality. This is the intensive care unit, where I apparently reside." A fearful glance over her shoulder showed just how shaken she was by this unexpected change in their location.

Aragorn and Legolas stared at her in amazement. They had not expected that response. Visiting her in the dream world was one thing. Actually being in her world, twenty thousand years into their future was quite another. After a moment's contemplation, Aragorn decided it made sense, in a way. For them to climb the stairs, they had to imagine the stairs being there. The dream world which was the one that they could touch, could interact with, was still underlying this world. Though they could not see the structure of that world, they were still in control of it. If Aragorn were to imagine a wall in front of them in the same place a wall stood in her reality, they would no longer be able to walk through it. But they still would not be interacting with things in this world. They had the role of disembodied spirits here.

As Lauren looked back over her shoulder again, a look of fear mixed with resolve crossed her face. Turning around, she started to walk through the doors her mother had entered.

Reaching out, Aragorn placed a hand on her shoulder. "You do not have to do this." He feared what it was they would see if they ventured forward.

Taking a deep breath, she looked back at him. "Yes, I do."

Legolas placed his hand on her other shoulder. "Then know that you do not face this alone."

She nodded briefly, then started forward again, with the both of them close on her heels. As they walked through the doors, Aragorn stared around in curiosity. There was a central desk with several people sitting behind it. Around the desk, rather than having individual rooms, there were sections partitioned off with three walls and a pull curtain across the fourth side. People in beds occupied many of these sections. Some of the people were obviously injured. Aragorn saw many people with bandages and casts, but not all of the occupants had visible injuries. Whether or not there were visible injuries, however, almost all of the people were connected to various tubes and wires. Glancing over, Aragorn saw that Legolas was also looking around in a kind of apprehensive wonder.

When Lauren stopped this time, Aragorn felt her hand steal into his. He squeezed her hand in reassurance and she squeezed back tightly in response. Legolas murmured some reassurance to her, and Aragorn saw that her other hand was held tightly in one of Legolas'. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she walked through the curtain that she had seen her mother disappear behind, pulling Aragorn and Legolas with her. At the sight that met their eyes, her hands tightened crushingly on theirs.

The first thing Lauren saw was the metal contraption suspended above the bed. Following the lines down to the bed, she found a pair of legs, both suspended in traction, propped up on pillows. A metal pin protruded from each knee, and it was these pins that were connected to the traction device. Both legs were bandaged heavily and held immobile. Her eyes tracked slowly up the body in the bed. Though the body was covered in a blanket to the chest, both arms were on top of the blanket. They didn't seem to be broken, though there was a bandage wrapped around the left wrist, and there were numerous cuts and bruises decorating the length of both arms; angry red lines slashed across skin tinged a purplish-yellow. Stitches held several of the worst cuts closed. IV tubes ran to the back of the right hand and a heart monitor was clamped on the tip of the right index finger. A steady beeping filled the room indicating a slow heartbeat. Lauren's eyes reluctantly moved up past those lax arms to look at the face of the person in the bed. She dispassionately noted the thick tube taped to the mouth; the tube extended down into the lungs and was attached to the ventilator. There was a feeding tube running into the nose, and both eyes were taped shut to prevent them from drying out. There was a bandage wrapped around the forehead, and a hint of ugly purple bruises peeking out from underneath the bandages. Dark limp hair framed the far too pale face and highlighted the dark bruises sprinkled across the side of the face that they could see.

'Poor thing,' Lauren thought to herself. She knew that the woman in the bed had to be her, but it didn't seem real. Somehow, the past week and a half in her made-up world seemed much more real than this moment.

As Lauren focused on the face of the woman in the bed, a hand reached down to rest lightly on her face, and Lauren looked up at the owner of the hand. Her father stood there, tenderly stroking the cheek of the still figure in the bed.

"Daddy?" Lauren released Aragorn and Legolas' hands and stepped forward hesitantly until she was standing beside her father. Reaching out, she placed her hand on his shoulder. Or, she meant to place her hand on his shoulder. When her hand passed through him instead, she quickly stepped back in surprise.

"Lauren?" her father asked softly. He looked around and glanced briefly at his shoulder before scanning the rest of the room.

"What is it?" Lauren's mother asked from where she sat in a chair at the foot of Lauren's bed.

"I thought…" he looked down to see Lauren's hands lying limply on the bed, as they had been for many days now. "Never mind, it must have been my imagination."

Lauren's mother searched his face for a moment with hope in her eyes. Lauren and her father were especially close, and if something were going to change in Lauren's condition, he would probably be the first to know. The disappointment in his face made her own expression fall, and she looked back to her lap while Lauren's father fixed his gaze firmly on Lauren's face.

"Oh, my sweet baby," Lauren heard him whisper. "When are you going to wake up and show us those gorgeous silver eyes? I'd give anything in this world just to have you wake up and tell us you're OK." His voice cracked slightly, and Lauren was startled to see a tear trail down his face. She had rarely ever seen her father cry.

Her father's words and that single tear broke through her detachment, and tears filled her own eyes. The sudden realization that the woman truly was **her** struck with the force of a freight train. Her legs gave out and she sank toward the floor.

Aragorn and Legolas each caught an arm and eased her down to the floor gently.

For a long moment after entering the room, Aragorn could only stare in horror at the figure in the bed. Though he had spent more than a week in Lauren's company, he almost could not recognize her features. The bandages, bruises, and medical equipment did much to obscure her face, but it was the lack of expression that made it most difficult to match her features to Lauren. The woman he had come to know was so expressive that her features were rarely still. When he had convinced himself that it was indeed Lauren, he looked over to see how the others were reacting. Legolas looked nearly sick as he realized how badly injured Lauren was. Lauren, however, stood perfectly still and composed as she examined her body. He had been stunned when her father apparently sensed that she had touched him. It seemed that not all the abilities of the line of Elrond and Elros had disappeared. Aragorn knew that Lauren's stoic reaction would not last, and he and Legolas were ready to move when her legs gave out underneath her.

As soon as she was seated on the floor, Lauren brought her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and stared unseeingly into the distance. "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God Oh God OhGodOhGodOhGod…" Her words blurred into a long never-ending mantra as she began rocking gently back and forth. Aragorn was unsure if her words were a prayer or simply a reaction to the situation. He placed a hand on her back, in an attempt to get her attention. There was no reaction from her. As far as he could tell, Lauren didn't even know they were there.

A sudden movement made Aragorn and Legolas look up, away from Lauren. Her father had turned and was now staring at a machine behind him and her mother had approached the bed with a worried look on her face. "Dan, what's going on?"

Aragorn started briefly, as he heard the woman call Lauren's father by one of Elladan's nicknames. Shrugging off his surprise, he concentrated on what was happening. Aragorn realized that the slow beeping he had heard earlier now had a more rapid pace. It did not take him more than a moment to realize that the beeping matched Lauren's heartbeat, and was a way to monitor her condition. Glancing back at Lauren huddled on the floor, he came to the conclusion that her reaction was affecting her physical body. He was unsure if an increased heart rate was a good sign at the moment or not. However, the near gasping rate of Lauren's breathing, if it affected her physical body, might lead to more difficulties.

"Lauren?" Aragorn rubbed her shoulder gently, trying to get a sign from her indicating that she was aware of her surroundings at all. He thought it would be a very good idea to calm her down, before she did something that might worsen her condition. Legolas followed his lead and crouched on her other side, talking to her and doing his best to break her out of her trance.

Aragorn's head whipped around as the curtain separating the small room from the larger area was drawn back suddenly and a pair of legs walked right through him. Standing swiftly and taking a few steps back, Aragorn shook his head. That was an extremely odd experience. It was not one he wished to repeat, either. He looked over at the woman who had just entered. She was wearing a pair of white pants and a colorful short sleeve shirt. Though it did not exactly match the other uniforms he had seen, Lauren had assured him that this was a style of clothing worn by nurses in present day hospitals. The woman crossed over to the machines that monitored Lauren's physical state, gently gesturing for Lauren's parents to move out of her way. She studied the machines for a moment, then asked Lauren's parents to leave while she called the doctor.

Lauren's parents looked as if they wanted to argue, but nodded instead. Aragorn thought they looked resigned to the situation, as if they had gone through something like this many times before. Lauren's father took her mother's hand in his as they moved to leave the room, then he hesitated and looked back at the nurse.

"You'll have the doctor talk to us when she is done?" Lauren's father asked.

The nurse nodded. "Of course. If you'll just wait in the waiting room, I'll let her know that she can find you there." Lauren's parents nodded and left the room with one last backward glance at Lauren. The nurse then pressed a button on the wall and requested that Dr. Martin join her.

Knowing that more people would be arriving, Aragorn decided it would be best to move Lauren out of the way. He didn't want her or Legolas to be walked through as he had been. Walking through a wall was not so bad, but having people walk through you was entirely unnerving. He crouched back down by Lauren, but could not get her to acknowledge his presence. Deciding it would be easier to simply move her, he picked her up in his arms as he would a child and stood up. She gave no sign that she had noticed. Looking around, Aragorn spotted a chair in the corner out of the way. "The chair," he said, gesturing to it with his chin.

Legolas, having stood as well when Aragorn picked Lauren up, glanced uncertainly at the chair, then back to Aragorn. "She will fall through to the floor, Aragorn."

Aragorn rolled his eyes. "Not if we imagine that the chair exists in the world that we can touch, as we did the stairs." Suiting actions to words, Aragorn strode over to the chair, concentrating on imagining that they could touch the chair. As he reached the chair, he moved his foot forward to make sure he could touch the chair before lowering Lauren down into it. She immediately curled back up as she had been on the floor, rocking herself gently back and forth, though she had ceased her mantra and was now eerily silent. He and Legolas exchanged helpless looks as they each took up a position on either side of her, resting a hand on her shoulder protectively.

Another woman in an open white coat swept into the room and moved over beside the nurse. The two women exchanged greetings and spent more time examining the monitors before going to Lauren's side. Aragorn listened to their highly technical conversation and was able to determine that the tube in Lauren's throat had been breathing for her, but now, for the first time, she was taking breaths in between the timing of the device. He watched with great curiosity as the doctor leaned over and disconnected the device from the tube. When Lauren took a breath on her own, without the aid of the device, the doctor and nurse exchanged a smile. They observed her for several minutes, to make sure that she was breathing normally before moving to pull the tube from her throat. Aragorn winced as he saw the tube removed. Lauren would surely have a sore throat for awhile after the tube's removal. That could not have been comfortable. The doctor checked all of Lauren's monitors once more and jotted a few notes down on a chart, then began to walk out of the room. "I'm assuming the Ellises are in the waiting room?"

"Yes, they are. They're waiting for you."

"As I would expect. Thank you, Kim." The nurse nodded as the doctor left the room.

"I want to hear what she intends to tell Lauren's parents," Aragorn said. He glanced down at Lauren, still huddled in the chair. "Will you stay with her?"

"Of course," Legolas nodded.

"Hannon le." Aragorn followed the doctor out of the room.

Legolas was left alone in the room with the two versions of Lauren. The version containing her conscious mind was still curled up in the chair, and her physical body was unmoving in the bed. He crouched down in front of her and placed his hands on her arms. "Lauren?" As before, he received no response. "I wish Aragorn had stayed with you," he commented. "I do not know how to help you." A faint sound came from Lauren, and he leaned forward to hear what it was. It took only a moment to realize that she was humming, but so faintly that even his elven hearing could barely pick it up. For the first time, he heard the music that was emanating from the radio near her bed. He had been so pre-occupied by everything else in the room and Lauren's reaction that it had escaped his notice. A smile crossed his face. Music, of course! What else would reach Lauren in her current state?

Placing a hand against Lauren's face, he gently turned her face toward him. The look in her eyes was unfocused, distant, and he knew she did not see him. Taking one of her hands in his, he began to sing, an elven song of hope, of finding light in the darkness. Watching her face as he sang, he saw her eyes gradually begin to focus. By the time he ended the song, her gaze was focused on his face. "Lauren, how are you feeling?"

"A little fuzzy," she admitted, looking around the room. "Where's Aragorn?"

"The doctor left the room to talk with your parents, and Aragorn wanted to hear what they were told." Legolas watched her face carefully as he spoke, trying to gauge her reaction.

Lauren sat up straighter, uncurling her body and putting her feet firmly on the floor. Pushing herself to her feet, she looked at Legolas, who had also risen to his feet. "Shall we join them?"

"Are you sure you wish to hear what will be said?" Legolas asked cautiously, studying her pale face.

"No, but I think I need to hear it, and it's better than staying in this room." She rubbed her hands over her face as if to scrub away the cobwebs remaining in her head, then lowered her hands and squared her shoulders, preparing for what she would encounter next.

Legolas could not argue with her statement. He agreed that it would be a good idea to remove Lauren from this room. Neither of them could resist a last look back at the still body on the bed as they left the room, though.

----

Aragorn had no trouble following the doctor through the corridors to the waiting room where Lauren's parents were anxiously waiting for word on their daughter's condition. They rose quickly from their chairs as they saw the doctor approaching them.

"How is she?" Lauren's father asked as the doctor came to a stop in front of them.

"She is doing better," the doctor answered. She had learned that this particular set of parents wanted a daily briefing as to their daughter's condition, and did not want anything left out. She assumed it had to do with a lifetime in the military. In response to that, she gave them a concise summary of what they wanted to hear. "She has started breathing on her own. That is a great milestone, and gives us a better hope that she may recover enough to wake up soon. Understand that I can make no guarantees about that, but it is a good sign."

Both parents nodded in understanding. "What about the infection in her legs?" Dan asked.

"We seem to have it under control," the doctor said. "Her fever has dropped a bit, and the visible signs of infection in her legs are fading. The other sites of her surgeries are doing well, and they show no signs of infection."

Aragorn's brow furrowed in concern. What surgeries were the doctor referring to, and what kinds of surgery had been done on Lauren's legs?

"And there is no danger that Lauren will lose her legs?" her father asked, his forehead crinkled in his concern. He gently squeezed his wife's hand as she drew in a deep, steadying breath.

Aragorn inhaled sharply at the thought. He did not know how Lauren would survive the loss of her legs. Imagining the active, vibrant woman he had come to know and love losing her legs nearly made him sick to his stomach.

The doctor's response was cautious. "As you know, her legs were badly crushed in the accident. We were able to save them, but just barely. You were told at the outset that there was still a possibility she could end up losing them if they did not heal properly. There is no sign of tissue necrosis, which means that none of the tissue died in the accident or intervening hours. That's good. The infection was not such a good thing. It set her recovery back quite a bit, but we think that is under control now. She has good blood flow through her legs, and as of yesterday, she was reacting to painful stimuli. That was also a good sign. For the first week after the accident, she showed no signs that she could feel her legs."

Aragorn brought his hand up to cover his mouth in his concern. He could tell from looking at her legs that she had been seriously injured, but he had not known how close she had come to having them amputated. He could truly not bear to think about it. Lauren was so active that he didn't know if she would be able to adapt to having to give up all those things she loved to do.

"Aragorn," a voice called his name, and Aragorn turned to see Legolas and a very pale Lauren walking toward him. An eyebrow rose unconsciously as he saw Lauren moving under her own power. "How are you feeling?" he asked her as they approached him.

"Better," Lauren answered shortly. She turned her attention to the doctor who was continuing her 'briefing' to Lauren's parents.

"As you are aware, her back was also injured in the accident. She avoided breaking her back, and we can find no sign that the spinal cord was damaged, but the massive bruising in her back caused swelling to press on her spinal cord. That swelling was the reason she did not seem to be able to feel her legs. As the swelling has gone down, she has shown signs that she is now able to feel her legs."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Lauren said softly, reaching down to rub her leg absently.

"We do not think there is any danger of her being paralyzed. But none of us can predict how complete her recovery will be. There is a chance she will never walk again, or never walk without some form of assistance. I don't say this to scare you, but merely to prepare you for the worst possibilities."

Aragorn and Legolas swiftly grabbed Lauren by the arms as she swayed on her feet. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, but managed to stay on her feet this time. Opening her eyes, she focused once more on the doctor's face.

"What about her internal injuries?" Dan queried.

"She's doing well after the surgery to remove her spleen. There may be problems later, as she will be more prone to infections and pneumonia now, but there were no complications from the surgery itself. She will have to take Penicillin for the rest of her life but she seems to be healing well. Her three broken ribs are also healing well. It's almost a good thing that she hasn't been moving around much, as she has not put any strain on her ribs or the muscles around them as she heals. For the seriousness of her injuries, she is really doing very well."

"And her head injury?" Lauren's mother asked. "Why isn't she waking up?"

The doctor sighed slightly. "With all of our understanding of the body, the brain still remains a mystery. We can't say why she has not woken up. We can't even say whether she has suffered brain damage, or to what extent. At this point, I can't tell you much beyond the fact that her autonomous reflexes are apparently still working as she has just started breathing on her own again. Her earlier MRI indicates that her brain is still active, and there are no blood clots or other visible physical problems."

"I'm not brain-damaged," Lauren muttered under her breath. "I can hear and understand every word you're saying."

"But she has no way of knowing that," Aragorn pointed out calmly.

"No, I guess no one would expect the invisible form of a coma patient to be standing right next to them as they describe her condition," Lauren agreed. She waved her hand in front of the doctor's face. "I wonder if anyone else is wandering the hallways like we are. It could be interesting to meet a few other coma patients. We could have a party, or, I know," she said with a false and somewhat sickly smile and snapping her fingers, "we could form a club. It would be a pretty exclusive club I think… Though I'm not sure anyone would want to pay the initiation fees."

Aragorn couldn't help a soft snort at Lauren's recitation. She did have a strange sense of humor.

The doctor spoke with Lauren's parents for a few more moments before taking her leave of them and going to tend to her other patients. Lauren watched as her parents hugged each other.

"She's getting better," her father reassured her mother. "It won't be long now before she wakes up and starts complaining about wanting to get out of the hospital." Lauren's mother smiled, but didn't reply. "You'll see," he said confidently. "She's a fighter, she won't give up so easily."

At that, Lauren's mother did reply. "Of course she's a fighter. She's your daughter, isn't she?" She took a deep breath and looked stronger. "You're right. She's strong, she'll be fine. We should go call the kids and tell them that Lauren is breathing on her own. They could use the good news, and we can't go back to see Lauren for another forty-five minutes."

Dan smiled lovingly at his wife. She tracked every minute that they were away from Lauren. They were only allowed to visit for fifteen minutes every hour, and their last visit had been interrupted. "Come on then, we have to make sure we're back in time for our next visit." He kissed her hand, then led her down the hallway. Though he wouldn't admit it out loud, he wouldn't dream of missing a single visit either. He loved all his children, but he had a special place in his heart for his only daughter. No matter how old she grew, she would still be his little girl. If it had been possible, he would have gladly traded places with her. He just had to trust his own words. She would fight to recover and she would. It would be a battle, but he trusted in her strength and determination to make a full recovery.

------

Lauren watched as her parents walked down the hallway with a sheen of tears in her eyes. "I love you too," she whispered. "But I think you overestimate me. I don't know if I have the strength to face this."

Aragorn turned her to face him. "Of course you do. No, it will not be easy, and it will take a lot of effort, but you can face this and you can recover from this. You are not alone in your battles, Lauren. Your parents are obviously here to help you through this, and I do not think they are the only ones. Your family and your friends will be there to help you with whatever you need. They will not abandon you to face this on your own. Trust in their love and lean on them when you need to borrow their strength."

Shaking her head, Lauren looked away from him. "Aragorn, you heard what she said. I may never walk again. I can't imagine a world where I can't run, or go hiking through the woods. I guess I won't be running that marathon after all, and I'll probably never get to hang-glide for real." She pushed herself away from him and began pacing as she felt panic well up inside her.

"Lauren, the doctor did not say that you would never walk again. She could not predict how complete your recovery would be. You are not paralyzed, and can feel your legs. You are not without hope." Aragorn decided not to tell her that he had heard the doctor say there was still a small chance that she could lose her legs. That would not help the situation any. He kept his eyes on her as she paced back and forth across the waiting room.

"I have to get out of here," Lauren muttered. "How the hell do we get back to the dream world? I think I'll just stay there for awhile."

Aragorn sighed as he saw Lauren getting more worked up over this. "Lauren, you cannot simply retreat into the dream world. If you try to run from your troubles, you will not succeed. As soon as you stop running, you will find the problems still there. Facing troubles is the only way to move on with your life. You have people here who love you. They desperately want you to wake up and reassure them that you are well. Do you not have a responsibility to them?"

Lauren turned quickly on him. "Tell them I'm well? Do you want me to lie to them? Because I'm not well, Aragorn! You saw what kind of shape I'm in. Are you going to tell me that I'm OK and everything is going to be fine? I don't want your platitudes, Aragorn. Things are not fine!" She was gesturing sharply as she spoke, her movements stiff and angry.

"Lauren," Aragorn's voice was commanding, designed to cut through her panic. "You are a daughter of kings and elves. You are stronger than you know. I have come to know you in our time together, and I agree with your father. You are a fighter; you will make it through this. Once you wake up, you will face each day as it comes, fighting only each battle as it comes. Right now you see only how far you have to go, but each journey begins with a single step. Take only one step at a time, and you will eventually reach your goal."

"And if you can't take a single step?" Lauren asked snidely. "It's easy for you to say all this, you aren't in my position. I doubt either of you have been in a position where you were facing the idea of never being able to walk again. When you leave here and wake up, you'll be perfectly healthy and able to walk. When I leave here and wake up, I'll be facing more pain than I've ever had in my whole life, and the fact that my whole life has changed overnight." She threw up her hands and resumed her pacing, but it had a rather frantic tone to it now. "I can't deal with this right now, I just can't." The last line was uttered under her breath.

Aragorn exchanged a helpless glance with Legolas. Nothing he had said seemed to be helping at all. Legolas had once told him that he had a way of inspiring people to go beyond what they thought themselves capable of and that he brought hope to all he met. Somehow, those gifts seemed to have disappeared. Lauren was not responding well to anything he said.

As Lauren desperately paced back and forth, their surroundings abruptly changed once more. The shimmer that flashed briefly told Aragorn and Legolas that they had just left Lauren's reality behind and once again returned to the dream world. Unfortunately, they seemed to have appeared in the middle of a barren desert. Lauren did not seem to be in the proper mood to conjure an appealing location. With a moment's concentration, Aragorn conjured up a wooded location. Lauren only noticed when she almost walked into a tree. She glanced sideways at Aragorn and changed her path only enough to avoid the tree as she continued pacing.

Aragorn decided to try once more. "Lauren, you once told me that you believed your accident was 'part of a grander scheme of things' that you could not yet see. You believed that we were meant to meet. Do you no longer believe that?"

Whirling around to face him, Lauren waved her arm to indicate her entire situation. "How can I believe that this is part of some grand design? I can't imagine that God decided that it would be to anyone's benefit to put me in a wheelchair. And please don't tell me that 'suffering is good for the soul' or that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. I really don't want to hear it."

Glancing over at Legolas, Aragorn saw that the elf was as confused as he was. He had never heard the supposed sayings that Lauren tossed back at them. That had not been what he was about to say. Opening his mouth to reply, he closed it again as Lauren spoke over him.

"And if this whole thing happened so that I could meet you, I'm sorry, but given the option to go on living my life as a whole person, I'd gladly forgo the 'honor' of meeting you both." She nearly spat the word honor, her face twisted in her anger.

Aragorn's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline as he crossed his arms over his chest. Lauren's tone was bitter, harsh. There would be no reasoning with her in this mood. Perhaps the best thing would be to keep quiet and let her talk things out for herself. So far, everything he had said had only served to increase her anger.

Lauren turned away and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself, but a horrible idea occurred to her, and she rounded on them again.

"And what if you're not even real?" she questioned Aragorn and Legolas plaintively. "How do I know that you're not just something my mind came up with to keep me from going insane here? The doctor said I could have brain damage. What if you two are just some elaborate hallucination, and there really is no purpose to this?"

"Are we truly back to that?" Aragorn asked, staring at her in disbelief. He threw up a hand as if he were trying to brush away the thought. "You are truly the most stubborn person I have ever met. After everything we have shared, do you truly think that we only exist in your mind?"

"I don't know," Lauren said, standing still as her anger drained away, leaving her feeling empty, desolate. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed tiredly. "I need to be alone and think things through for myself right now. Be good hallucinations and go away."

This last retort did not have the bite of her earlier insults. She seemed weary, defeated, and that worried Aragorn. He opened his mouth to give an angry retort, thinking that her anger was better than the empty look of utter despair now in her eyes.

"No," Lauren said firmly, stopping Aragorn's words. "I said leave me alone." With that, Lauren waved her hand in their direction, and Aragorn and Legolas found themselves flying backwards as if a troll had picked them up and thrown them.

----

Aragorn sat up in bed suddenly, breathing hard. Arwen, startled out of her sleep, sat up beside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"What is wrong, my love?" Her voice was soft and concerned as she took in the look on his face.

"Lauren," Aragorn gasped, still feeling off balance. This was like no other time he had left her world. For a moment, he had been unsure of where he was. It was thoroughly disorienting. "She threw us out of her world."

"Threw you out?" Arwen asked in disbelief. She was about to ask for more details when the door to their chamber opened and Legolas stepped quickly inside, closing the door behind him. He crossed the room and pulled a chair up near their bed. Arwen stared at Legolas. He seemed disheveled, having obviously come straight from bed, not having taken the time to either change from his sleep clothes or brush his hair. Seldom had Arwen seen him like this. "What happened?" she asked in bemusement. Her voice grew more suspicious as she looked back to Aragorn. "What did you do?"

"Do?" Aragorn asked, affronted that she would believe he had caused Lauren to throw them out of her world. "We didn't do anything."

Arwen looked to Legolas. "Legolas?" Her tone of voice made it clear that he should answer as honestly and quickly as he could.

"Lauren was angry at her situation, and we were unable to get her calmed down." That was as close as he could come to describing the whole scene in a single sentence.

Aragorn ran his hand through his hair and glared at Legolas. "We? I didn't see you making much of an effort to calm her down. You never even said anything once she started yelling."

"I could see that it would not do any good to say anything," Legolas shrugged. "Every word out of your mouth only served to make her angrier. I did not think she needed to be mad with both of us."

His mouth dropped open as he stared at Legolas. Glancing sideways, he saw Arwen's lips twitch in amusement at their argument. "It is not funny, Arwen. I am very concerned for Lauren."

"As am I," Legolas admitted, leaning forward in his chair and resting his elbows on his knees. "She did not react at all well to seeing herself. I came to see if you were willing to try to get back to her. She does not need to be alone at the moment."

"She saw herself?" Arwen asked. This conversation was getting more confusing by the minute. "If one of you does not explain this to my satisfaction very soon, I will **not** be happy."

Taking a deep breath, Aragorn admitted to himself that as much as he wanted to get back to Lauren, he would not be able to fall asleep until he had calmed himself down. Taking Arwen's hand in his and stroking it soothingly, he launched into the story of what had happened that night. He picked up his story with the unusual effect in the change in scenery when they made a visit to the hospital. Legolas chimed in with his own observations and thoughts as Aragorn explained.

Arwen listened intently as Aragorn described what they found when they walked into Lauren's hospital room, and Lauren's reaction to it. "She is in shock," Arwen decided as the tale continued.

"Yes," Aragorn agreed. "And she is not in the mood to listen to anything we say, but she does not need to be alone to dwell upon her darkest thoughts." He told her of the argument and finished by describing the despair he had seen in her eyes just before she ejected them forcibly from the dream world. "We need to return," he stated firmly as he finished the tale.

"Agreed," Arwen said. "And I shall return with the both of you. It sounds like she will need a more sympathetic person there who will grieve with her for what she has lost. She is not ready to hear about fighting a battle to regain her life, Aragorn. Grief must come first before she can accept her situation and prepare to face it."

Closing his eyes, Aragorn realized Arwen was right. He had taken the wrong approach with Lauren. She would need encouragement to continue, yes, but that was not what she needed right now. Lying back on the bed, he pulled Arwen down to curl up beside him. "Yes, it would be good if you accompanied us." He looked back over at Legolas. "Would you like to return to your chambers?"

Legolas shook his head and moved to a more comfortable plush chair. Sinking down into it and curling up, he leaned his head on the arm of the chair. "I will remain here as we test whether or not we can return. I believe that Lauren has the ability to keep us out if she does not desire our company."

Nodding his acceptance, Aragorn relaxed back into the bed and held Arwen's hand against his chest. He would probably need her help to relax enough to try falling asleep again.

After an hour of trying, Aragorn was forced to admit defeat. He had actually been able to fall asleep twice, but did not return to Lauren's dream world. She was successfully blocking them. Aragorn gave a weary sigh as he looked back to where Legolas was sleeping soundly in the chair, waiting for Aragorn's signal to join him in the dream world. Arwen brushed his hair out of his face and sighed at the defeated look on his face. It was near dawn, but her husband was not ready to face the responsibilities and duties of the day. "I will make some of Ada's tea, Aragorn. You need at least a few hours rest before you take on the responsibilities of a kingdom. Faramir can handle your morning appointments. I will explain everything to him. You need your rest."

It was a measure of how tired and defeated Aragorn felt that he did not protest. Arwen brought him the tea and he quickly drained it before lying back on his side and falling asleep. Arwen set the cup on the bedside table before rejoining her husband. She lay against his back, draping one arm around his waist and resting her head against his. "Sleep well, my love." She left Legolas sleeping where he was, and thought about Lauren and what her future held. "Ilúvatar, watch over all the members of my family, wherever and whenever they exist." After this brief but heartfelt prayer, she relaxed back into the arms of sleep and a sense of peace fell over all the occupants of the room.


	17. Storms

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Seventeen - Storms 

Gimli watched the figure pacing silently and with great agitation around the room. After the tenth such circuit, he could stand it no longer.

"Sit down, lad! You're making me dizzy!"

Aragorn glanced up in surprise at Gimli, stopping in mid-stride. With a sheepish look at the other occupants of the room, he crossed over to sit in a chair next to Arwen. "My apologies." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and bending his head over his hands. "I am just…concerned for Lauren."

Arwen reached over, resting her hand over both of his. "I know, my love. We share your concern."

Lifting his head, Aragorn looked back at his wife. "Thank you." He looked around at the others sitting in the room; Faramir and Éowyn, Gimli, Legolas and of course, Arwen. They had all gathered here this evening to discuss the events of last night with Lauren. After Arwen had informed Faramir of Aragorn's need for rest, he had readily agreed to handle all the morning tasks that Aragorn would have handled. He had insisted on having this meeting in the evening, however, as he was concerned about the effect that recent events had had on his king. Aragorn had been distant and distracted all day, prompting Faramir to stay by his elbow throughout the day.

Running a hand agitatedly through his hair, Aragorn couldn't help but add, "If you had just seen the look in her eyes…"

"What is it you fear?" Éowyn asked. Faramir would not have dared ask his king about his fears, so Éowyn knew it was up to her to ask the question.

Aragorn sighed heavily as he thought about his response. "I know that her world is purely one of thought, of imagination, but her state of mind can affect her physical body. I have seen it. My greatest fear is that she will do harm to herself in her dream world and cause even greater problems in her reality."

"Do you truly think she would harm herself?" Legolas asked, glancing sharply over at Aragorn. "I have come to know her as well, and do not think her capable of it. Her spirit is far too strong."

"I hope that you are right, mellon-nín," Aragorn replied. "But I cannot be certain, and neither can you; not until we see her again."

"And if she does not wish to see you?" Arwen asked, remembering the many failed attempts to get back to her world of the night before.

"She has certainly shown that she has a greater control of the dream world," Aragorn admitted. "If she wishes to keep us out, it is well within her abilities." He shook his head sadly at the thought that she would keep them out just when she needed them the most.

"Why are you even thinking of trying to see her again?" Gimli asked abruptly. "If she is that angry, she could turn on you. It's not worth the risk."

Catching Gimli's eyes, Aragorn stared at him for a moment. "I trust that she would never try to harm me or Legolas, Gimli, no matter how angry she may be. I have come to know and love her as a daughter. I do not believe she could knowingly cause us harm."

Gimli muttered the next line under his breath. "Aye, and the witch has you under her spell."

Legolas let out a huff of frustration. "Are you still of the opinion that she is a witch, Gimli? After all we have told you of her? She is only a young woman trying to live through a very difficult time."

"A young woman who has reached across so many centuries?" Gimli asked scornfully. "Only one of great power could do that."

"Or one of my line," Aragorn inserted the comment into the conversation. "Such things are not unheard of in the line of Elrond and Elros."

"She is also descended from the Lady Galadriel, master Gimli. Do not forget that," Arwen reminded him with a small smile on her lips. She was fully aware of the dwarf's awe for her grandmother. "Few on Middle-earth could ever match her strength and power. Do you still consider her to be a witch?"

Gimli's face showed his shock at the thought. "Never! Lady Galadriel is no witch! And I'd gladly fight any who dared say such a thing!"

Arwen's smile spread as she regarded Gimli. "And her distant granddaughter is no more a witch than she is. Perhaps some of Galadriel's power has manifested in Lauren."

Gimli grumbled a bit under his breath, but so softly that not even Legolas could make out his words. He made no further protests however, when Aragorn suggested trying to reach Lauren again.

Unexpectedly, it was Faramir who spoke up in protest. "I would not attempt to dissuade you from reaching your granddaughter, my lord, but I do not think it a good idea for Lady Arwen to join you. Without her here, you have no anchor to this world to wake you when it is time."

"As long as our bodies are here, we will always have an anchor to this world," Aragorn said. "We have previously established the fact that Arwen is freely able to move between the worlds. If we decide that we have been there long enough, Arwen will leave and wake me up. That will break Legolas free from the dreams. There is nothing to concern yourself over."

Faramir's eyebrows lowered as he stared intently at his king. "I will decide what I should concern myself with, if you do not mind, my lord. Anything that could possibly harm you is my concern."

Aragorn waved a hand briefly in Faramir's direction, conceding the matter.

"I will keep watch as you attempt this thing," Faramir said firmly. "If there is trouble, I will be here to summon the healers."

Aragorn looked as if he would argue, but simply inclined his head toward his steward. It was, after all, Faramir's duty to worry over the well-being of the royal family. If this would assuage him, then it was a small concession to make. "Very well, you may keep watch from the sitting room, and only if there appears to be trouble should you summon the healers. Please do not do so if we are only a little late in waking." Aragorn remembered the last time they had stayed too long in Lauren's world only to wake and find their chambers full of healers.

"If you intend to stay long, I would appreciate a message telling me such," Faramir retorted.

A smile twisted Arwen's lips slightly. "Very well, my lord Steward," she replied. "I will be sure to do so."

Faramir reddened as he realized he had effectively just dictated an order to his king and queen. He would not apologize for it though.

After a short discussion, it was decided that Aragorn and Arwen would retire to their room, and Legolas would make himself comfortable in a chair as he had done the night before as they tested whether Lauren would even allow them to return. Faramir would stay in the adjoining sitting room with the door between the rooms cracked open slightly so that he could hear any signs of distress. Éowyn and Gimli had both opted to keep watch with Faramir. Gimli in part because he still did not trust Lauren, and Éowyn mostly because she did not wish to be parted from Faramir.

---------

As Aragorn lay down in the bed, he was unsure if he would be able to sleep. Arwen knew that he was too tense yet to sleep, so she laid her hand on his chest and rested her head on the pillow next to his head to whisper in his ear. "Relax, Estel." She led him to take a deep relaxing breath and once he was somewhat less tense, she decided to use a trick her father had taught her long ago. With a whispered command, Aragorn's eyes closed and he drifted to sleep. With a smile, Arwen let herself fall into the comforting arms of sleep, joining her husband.

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in total darkness. The only light to be seen was the soft glow coming from Legolas. Looking around, she had the sense of being in a vast open area, with nothing around her. She could faintly see Aragorn near her and reached a hand out to rest against his arm. His hand quickly moved to cover hers.

"This does not bode well," he said softly. A sudden jagged flash of lightning lit up their surroundings, and they could see that they stood in a flat, open meadow. A rumble of thunder and another flash of lightning underscored Aragorn's comment.

"She did not prevent us from arriving here," Legolas pointed out. "I would think that would be a good sign, and at least it is not raining. If our surroundings indicate her emotions, it could well be worse."

"Finding Lauren would end the debate, would it not?" Arwen asked. "She will be able to tell us how she feels." After all she had heard of the previous night, she wanted to see Lauren for herself.

Aragorn tilted his head toward her, though he was unsure if they could see him. "Then let us find her."

They stood still and listened for some sign of Lauren. In between the flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder, faint music could be heard. A small grin briefly crossed Aragorn's face. That at least, had not changed.

Following the sound of music, they soon found themselves standing near a blanket spread out across the ground. Lauren lay on her back on the blanket with some pillows propping her up as she watched the distant lightning. She didn't notice them as she listened to her music and tapped her hand lightly against the ground to the beat.

Aragorn listened with concern as she sang about crying when she was alone, scared to face reality, and having no one to save her from herself. He well knew how someone could be their own worst enemy, and feared that Lauren had begun to give up on the idea of waking up and going back to her life. At this point, that would be the worst thing she could do. He moved around the blanket into her line of sight, and noticed the dried tear tracks streaking down her face. Though she had obviously been crying long and hard, there were no fresh tears in her eyes. That storm seemed to have passed for now. Her eyes focused on his face as she took her attention from the glorious light show around them. She scrubbed her hands across her face, trying to erase the evidence of her tears.

"Hi." Her voice was soft and slightly hoarse, but steady. She sat up straighter, crossing her legs in front of her and gestured for him to join her on the blanket. Aragorn complied, sitting down across from her. Looking around, she spotted Legolas and Arwen and indicated that they should also sit down. Once everyone was settled comfortably, Lauren looked back and forth between Aragorn and Legolas. "I think I owe you both an apology. I shouldn't have yelled at you. I know you were only trying to help."

Shaking his head, Aragorn held up a hand to stop her. "You had seen something that you were not prepared for; though I do not know how anyone could be prepared for such a thing. You were correct. Had I been in your place, I may well have reacted the same way."

Giving him a wan smile, she shook her head slightly. "I doubt it. Thank you for trying to absolve me of my guilt, but I need to say this."

Aragorn nodded his head once toward her, indicating that he was listening.

"Yes, I was thrown off balance by what I had just seen, but I had no cause to take it out on you. The both of you have only ever been good to me. I haven't heard a single harsh word out of either of you, besides calling me stubborn that is." A slight grin briefly quirked up one corner of her mouth. "And I think I fully deserved that. My point is that I lashed out at you simply because you were near me, and that wasn't right. What happened to me is no one's fault, most certainly not yours, and I really had no right to yell at you like I did. I'm sorry. Please forgive my temper."

"All is forgiven," Aragorn said seriously, and Legolas nodded to indicate that he also held no grudge against her.

"How do you fare now?" Arwen asked gently, leaning in toward her slightly.

Lauren shrugged half-heartedly. "I'm OK, I guess. Well, sort of, in a way…" Her voice trailed off and she shifted her attention back to the sky.

The others exchanged a worried look. That was hardly reassuring to them. "We were worried when we found ourselves in the midst of a lightning storm," Aragorn commented.

"You shouldn't be," Lauren insisted, glancing briefly at him. "Not because of that, anyway. I've always loved lightning. You don't know how many summer storms I have gone out on the porch to watch. I could watch it for hours and not get bored at all. There's just something about the power and majesty and wonder in lightning that is nearly hypnotic for me. It's like a fireworks show that not everyone knows how to enjoy."

"And yet, you do not seem to be enjoying the view," Aragorn said. "There is a sadness around you."

Raising an eyebrow, Lauren gave him a sidelong look. "And do you wonder why?" She sighed softly and ran her hands through her hair. "I've resigned myself to the fact that I've been seriously injured and I won't just be able to pick myself up and go on with my life. I accept what is coming, but that doesn't mean that I'm the least bit happy about it."

"Nor would any expect you to be," Arwen assured her, reaching over to place her hand on Lauren's shoulder and give it a reassuring squeeze. Lauren smiled at her and placed her hand over Arwen's, squeezing back in thanks for her sympathy. Arwen smiled back at her before pulling her hand away.

"That was an interesting song you were listening to when we arrived," Aragorn commented, changing the subject and leaning back to rest a hand against the ground.

Lauren smiled over at him. "Yeah, I thought you'd like that. I kept hearing your voice in my head when I was listening to it. Between your words and my own thoughts, I've come to realize that running away from myself is rather pointless. After all, wherever I go, there I am." She started laughing as she said the last line. At Aragorn's quizzical expression, she attempted to explain. "Sorry, that's a favorite saying of one of my friends, 'Wherever you go, there you are.' It's supposed to be one of those statements that's so obvious that it's funny. And it's absolutely true. Like you said, we can't run from our troubles or pain, because we carry them with us wherever we go. And it does seem to be **me** that I'm trying to escape, though like the song said, that's not really possible." She sighed, a very melancholy sound, and looked around at them. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be much fun today. I don't even have the slightest idea in mind to entertain you."

"We did not come here to have you entertain us," Arwen said adamantly. Her voice softened with concern as she tilted her head to the side and looked at her distant granddaughter. "We desired to help you."

"And you have, just by being here and being concerned about me," Lauren assured her, touched by the obvious concern in her voice. "But I've been thinking about this since Aragorn and Legolas left last night. I don't really want to discuss it any more."

Aragorn decided that he would not push her at the moment. She was not avoiding the issue now; she was beginning to face it, though it was something that she would have to continue to do each day of her recovery. He also knew that their time together was short, and he wished to lighten her spirit and bring her some happiness before she left. Her trials would be easier to face if her spirit was not so burdened as it was now.

"Perhaps you would care to visit our world for once?" Arwen suggested with a thoughtful gleam in her eyes. Aragorn glanced at her in surprise. Apparently, they had had the same thought.

Lauren's face brightened. "I think I'd like that. You've seen what my life and my world are like, but I've only heard tales of the people and places in your lives. Where to first?"

She stood up slowly and the storm that had been raging in the skies dissipated to reveal the beginning of a sunrise off in the distance. Aragorn took that as a hopeful sign. "We should start with Minas Tirith. That is where we now live." He stood to his feet and offered his hand to Arwen to help her rise, though he knew very well his help was not required. She graciously took his offered hand and rose easily to her feet. Glancing over, Aragorn saw that Legolas was now standing near Lauren. Aragorn kept hold of Arwen's hand as they faced Lauren and Legolas.

"That's where you're king and queen, right?" Lauren asked, looking back and forth between Aragorn and Arwen. They nodded in response. "Would you like to re-create it here, or visit it like we just went into my reality?"

"I thought we found your world by accident," Aragorn said in confusion. He was sure that Lauren had not taken them there intentionally.

"We did," Lauren agreed. "But I went back there to visit for awhile last night. As long as you have a physical body to go to, it's pretty easy to go back and forth."

"You visited your world after we left?" Legolas asked in amazement. After her reaction, he didn't think she would have attempted it.

"Yes, I needed to see my parents again, and I wanted to get a better feel for what I'd be facing when I woke up. You have to admit that I wasn't exactly able to take in details the first time."

She gave a self-conscious shrug as she said this.

A thought occurred to Aragorn and he studied her face before asking, "Have you made an attempt to leave this world behind and rejoin yours?"

Lauren shifted her eyes away slightly. "Kind of, but I obviously didn't succeed. Of course, I don't really know how to, so that might be why I didn't succeed. But I also couldn't leave without saying goodbye. I didn't want your last memory of me to be last night." She couldn't quite meet his eyes as she said this, remembering how she had treated them last night.

"Would you care to try again, now that we are here?" Legolas asked carefully.

"Not yet," Lauren said quickly, looking up at him in near-panic. "I'm not ready to leave yet. Can we have one last night together at least? After all, Arwen just offered to show me your world. I would like to see it. This will probably be my only chance to ever see Middle-earth."

Aragorn admitted that it was likely that it would be her only chance. Though he privately thought that her desire to see his world was little more than an attempt to delay a return to her world, he would not deny her the chance. "Very well," he answered for Legolas, opening his hand toward her.

Taking a deep breath in relief, Lauren nodded her thanks to him. "Then we should probably get going, shouldn't we?"

Aragorn glanced around, seeing that the sky had lightened around them to show a very beautiful spring morning in an open meadow. Birds were singing in the air and flowers were in bloom, the leaves on the trees were a bright, new green. Somehow, he thought that Lauren would be fine. A soul capable of creating this scene was not so heavily burdened that it would be crushed under its load.

"We simply await your instructions," Aragorn commented lightly. If they were to attempt to travel to his reality, they would have to be directed as to how that could be done. It was not something any of them had the knowledge to accomplish on their own.

She nodded to him, acknowledging his point. "What you need to do is concentrate on the place you want to appear. Picture it in as much detail as you can, and just think yourself there."

"It is that simple?" Arwen asked in surprise. She had thought it would take more effort than that.

"Like I said, it's not difficult. The first time it happened, I was just trying to alter our surroundings to show them a hospital. The reason we actually traveled there was that my body happened to be lying in that hospital. Well, I think the fact that I'm closer to waking up had something to do with it, but since none of you are actually in a coma, that shouldn't be a factor. And Aragorn already knows how to alter our surroundings, so this won't be any more difficult. You just need to try to picture where you happen to be." Lauren gave them as many details as she could think of in order to enable them to travel to Middle-earth.

Aragorn shrugged. "That does not sound difficult at all."

"So give it a try," Lauren suggested.

Glancing at Arwen and Legolas, Aragorn directed them to do as Lauren had explained. It would likely be easier to make the transition if all three of them were trying to picture the same room at the same time. Moments later, the scenery around them began to change to Aragorn's sleeping chamber. The shimmer that surrounded them momentarily assured Aragorn that they had actually crossed the barrier to his world. Once the room materialized around them, they all found themselves staring at the figures sleeping in the bed. It was the oddest experience Aragorn had ever had, watching himself sleep. He looked over to see a very strange expression on Arwen's face as well.

"You're so cute," Lauren commented softly.

"Pardon me?" Aragorn asked in confusion, not sure what she was talking about.

Lauren walked over to stand beside the bed and gazed down at the still figures of Aragorn and Arwen. Arwen had her hand draped over Aragorn's chest, and his hand rested on hers.

"You're cute when you're sleeping," she said with an impish grin on her face as she looked back up at the figures of Aragorn and Arwen standing at the foot of the bed. Her eyes caught on something, and she looked past them to the sight of Legolas curled up in a chair across the room with his eyes open and staring off into space. She left the bedside and crossed the room to stand near Legolas, looking down at his face. She waved a hand in front of his eyes, looking for a reaction. Noticing a movement off to her left, she looked up to find Legolas standing beside her. Looking back and forth between the two forms, she finally looked up to the dream world Legolas. "I don't get it, are you asleep or not?"

"Of course I am asleep," he replied in bewilderment. "How else would I be able to visit you?"

Realizing what the problem was, Aragorn hastened to explain. "Elves sleep with their eyes open, Lauren."

"Weird," she commented, studying the form sleeping in the chair. Another thought occurred to her. "Do you make a habit of sleeping in the same room as Aragorn and Arwen? It seems a little odd to me."

"No, it is not my normal habit," Legolas said indignantly. "My chambers are down the hallway. I am only here this night because we were not sure we could reach you. You were quite successful at keeping us out last night. If we were unable to reach you in a normal fashion, I would need to be near so that we could try something different."

She thought about this for a moment. "OK, I guess that makes sense. But that chair doesn't look especially comfortable. Aren't you going to be a bit stiff when you wake up?"

"It is doubtful," Legolas said. "Elves are not as susceptible to physical discomfort as are humans."

"Legolas can quite comfortably sleep for hours among the branches of a tree," Aragorn put in. "Though I was raised among elves, it is a skill I have never mastered."

"Well, I guess anyone who can sleep in a tree can spend the night in a chair without too much discomfort," Lauren allowed. She turned away from Legolas' sleeping form to look at the others. "Now, what did you have to show me? I doubt you brought me here just to show me your bedroom."

"True enough," Aragorn admitted. He swept his hand out toward a doorway, gesturing for her to precede them into the next room.

Lauren walked through the door that was slightly ajar and stopped in surprise as she found the sitting room on the other side of the door occupied. Legolas, following her, bumped directly into her, not being able to see that she had stopped just beyond the door. "Lauren, why did you stop?" he asked, taking her arm and moving her to the side of the door so that Aragorn and Arwen would not collide with them as they also walked through the door.

"Who are they, and why are they sitting here while you sleep?" Lauren asked the question just as Aragorn and Arwen joined them in the sitting room.

Aragorn glanced around the room and spied the occupants that had startled Lauren. He walked over to stand in front of them and gesturing to each as he named them, he introduced Faramir, Éowyn and Gimli to Lauren.

"Why are they sitting out here?" Lauren repeated her question, staring at them curiously. She had heard so much about them, it was odd to finally see them. It was even odder to think that she was standing right here talking about them, but they didn't know it. They were not talking at the moment, but sitting in silence, Éowyn leaning her head on Faramir's shoulder as she read a book. Gimli sat on a low chair, apparently taking the quiet time to sharpen his axe.

"Faramir did not like the idea of Arwen joining us this night," Aragorn explained. "If you will remember, he was not happy when he was unable to wake us the last time Arwen met with us."

"So, he's what, on guard duty or something?" Lauren asked with a raised eyebrow as she looked skeptically back at Aragorn. "What is he going to do to protect you from your dreams?"

"He was not sure," Arwen explained, "but he would not leave while the three of us were visiting with you. He feels it is his duty to protect us from all possible dangers."

"I suppose I can see that, though I have no idea what he could possibly do if there were problems here. But what is Gimli doing here, and especially with an axe?"

"Gimli does not trust you," Legolas said with amusement in his voice. "He considers you to be a witch." He crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Lauren, taking in her reaction.

"A witch?" Lauren asked, with a very amused look on her face. She crouched down in front of him and waved a hand in front of his face. "And the axe?" she asked, glancing back at Legolas and the others.

"He did not have it earlier," Aragorn said. "He may have decided that it was a good time to sharpen his weapons." Aragorn shrugged, finding nothing odd in the thought.

"He looks entirely too comfortable with that axe," Lauren commented. "I realize that in your time, you may not want to wander too far without a way of defending yourself, but I don't know that I'd trust someone who caresses their weapon like you would a lover."

An evil grin crossed Aragorn's face. "You have never seen Legolas with his bow, have you?"

Lauren couldn't help laughing as she twisted back around to look inquiringly at Legolas' face for his reaction.

"Rakhâs ai-menu!" (Orcs upon you.) Legolas retorted without hesitation, turning pink in the face. He used a dwarvish curse, as he thought elvish too refined to be used in such a manner.

"What did he just say?" Lauren asked Arwen as Aragorn glared back at Legolas. Arwen did not answer for a moment, as she was too busy laughing at the staring contest between Aragorn and Legolas.

Legolas, however, did not appreciate being laughed at. "The curse includes you too, Arwen," he shot back.

"That was hardly necessary," Aragorn complained. He deserved the curse for such a comment, but Arwen had done nothing but laugh.

Lauren was getting impatient at being ignored. "What did that mean?" she asked again.

"You do not want to know," Arwen finally replied, getting her laughter under control.

Lauren just raised her eyebrows and looked back at Legolas. "Legolas?"

"I did not like his implication," Legolas retorted. "He insulted my honor with such a comment." Legolas calmed down slightly as he continued. "Besides, my bow was a gift from the Lady Galadriel. The Lothlorien elves make the finest bows in all of Middle-earth. I do not know how anyone could gaze at such a perfect weapon and not be a little awe-struck by it."

"May I see it?" Lauren asked in curiosity.

"Of course," Legolas responded brightly, gratified that she was showing such an interest in his bow. With a thought, it appeared in his hand and he held it out before her.

"Very nice," Lauren said, reaching out to take it from Legolas' hands for a closer inspection. She was quite surprised when Legolas drew it closer to his body, keeping it just out of her reach. Raising an eyebrow at him, a slow grin crossed her face. "It's not even real here, Legolas. I can't do anything to hurt the real thing." Legolas very reluctantly handed it to her, and she took it carefully in her arms to inspect it with the proper respect before handing it back to him. There was a visible relief in his expression as he took it back from her then made it disappear.

"OK," Lauren said slowly. "I've just come to the conclusion that you should never get between an elf and his weapons. If your reaction is that drastic to someone merely wanting to hold a simulated version of the bow, how would you react if someone actually tried to take it from you?"

"I would cut their hand from their body," Legolas said seriously. A hint of humor in his eyes was all that belied his statement.

Lauren looked at him with a bemused expression on her face. "Uh huh." Her tone of voice made it clear that she wasn't quite sure how to react to that. "And I thought the dwarf had issues."

At that comment, both Aragorn and Arwen started laughing and Legolas looked down at Lauren in a mix of humor and betrayal. He would never have expected Lauren to make such a comment about him. She had obviously gotten over her initial awe of him.

Before Legolas could retort and keep this going for any longer, Arwen interrupted. "As amusing as this all is, I have an idea to propose. I believe it would be possible for us to become visible to them for a short period of time. Would you like to do so?"

"How?" Lauren asked, rising to her feet at the same time that Aragorn objected to his wife's idea.

"I do not think that would be wise. Does this not involve a great risk to you?" Aragorn obviously knew what Arwen was referring to, though Legolas and Lauren were looking at them in confusion.

"Not risk, truly," Arwen explained slowly. "A strain, but nothing worse, I believe."

"What are you talking about?" Lauren asked them.

"One of the Lady Galadriel's gifts is the ability to show others what is hidden, things in the past, future, or even in other realms. Much of her strength was used in making her 'mirror', in which she would often gaze and sometimes would show others events that may or may not come to pass. She has the ability to gaze into the very soul and mind of a person, and read what is in their hearts. Her power was unmatched among the elves. As great as my father is, and even with his foresight, his power does not even begin to compare with hers. If she so wished, she could speak within a person's mind and show them many things. I am her granddaughter, and lived with her in Lothlorien for many centuries. She trained me in many things. My abilities are not as strong as hers, that is true, but they are there. I believe I have the strength to show the three of them this dream world that we currently inhabit. They should be able to see and hear us, for a short time."

"You could do such a thing?" Legolas asked in amazement. True, he had known that Arwen had lived with Galadriel for many years and had innate abilities of her own, but he had never considered what Galadriel may have taught her. Once when Legolas was visiting Aragorn and the Peredhil family in Rivendell, Arwen had told him that she watched over Aragorn in her thoughts as he traveled throughout Middle-earth. Through this he knew her abilities were strong, but he would not have thought her suggestion to be possible.

"For a short time, yes," Arwen said.

"Are you sure?" Aragorn asked. "You have not attempted such a thing for many years, not since becoming mortal." Seeing her about to protest his statement, he amended his words. "The power of the elves have faded in this world. Even had you not given up your immortality, this may be beyond you."

"Do not be so sure of that," Arwen said, staring at her husband. She did not seem to appreciate his doubt. She closed her eyes and drew her thoughts inward.

Lauren watched Arwen closely, as did Aragorn and Legolas. From their perspective, nothing was happening.

Suddenly, Gimli yelled out in surprise and in a move quicker than Lauren would have imagined, he was on his feet and swinging his axe cleanly through her body. Faramir and Éowyn rose to their feet in astonishment.

"HEY!" Lauren yelped in surprise and jumped back from Gimli as the axe passed cleanly through her middle. "What was that for?"

The sound of bright laughter made her glance over to see Legolas doubled over in his amusement.

"Oh, you thought that was funny, did you?" she asked dangerously, advancing on the elf.

Legolas, hearing a tone of threat that he had never heard before from her, glanced up warily at her. "Actually, yes, I did find it quite amusing." His voice was still tinged with a great deal of humor.

"The fact that your little friend there nearly cut me in two is humorous?" The dangerous note in her voice sharpened as she neared Legolas.

"You cannot be touched by anything of this world, Lauren. You were never in any danger." Legolas tried to explain his reaction to the scene as Lauren stalked toward him with a truly fearful gleam in her eyes.

"Little!" Gimli exclaimed in outrage as he and the others watched the scene in front of their astonished eyes.

Lauren did not hear him, as her attention was fixed solely on the elf in front of her. Legolas glanced warily around him as if looking for an escape route. He was reminded rather abruptly that she was also descended from the same bloodline as Elladan and Elrohir as that gleam in her eye became very familiar.

Aragorn was watching this entire thing with open amusement on his face. Faramir, just getting over the shock of seeing four people appear out of thin air in front of them, took his cue from Aragorn's demeanor and just watched to see what would happen. Aragorn, for his part, was truly enjoying watching Legolas retreat from Lauren. Legolas, who was renowned for his fierceness and battle prowess, was actually beginning to back away from Lauren, a young woman who had never seen a day of battle in her life. As he watched her, however, he was also reminded strongly of the twins as they prepared to spring one of their pranks. She was moving with a feline, if not elven grace, and he shuddered slightly as he saw the same gleam in her eye. He found himself almost feeling sorry for the elf. Almost.

As Lauren drew within a few inches of Legolas, she swiftly raised her hand toward him. Reacting to the perceived threat, Legolas moved to block her arm, and was taken by surprise as her other hand swung a pillow up to connect directly with the side of his head. He stopped in mid-move and just stared at her. "A pillow? Where did you get a pillow?"

She smirked at him. "We're in a world of imagination. I thought it up."

"Well, it that case…" A pillow suddenly appeared in his hand, and Lauren tried to duck away as he swung it toward her face.

"Pillow fight!" she cried, trying her best to take him down with a pillow in each hand. They were so engrossed in their mock battle that neither of them heard the footsteps approaching.

Aragorn had started laughing out loud the moment Lauren whacked Legolas with a pillow. The elf had rarely ever had such a stunned, surprised expression on his face. Remembering the many pillow fights he had had with his brothers, he was not all that surprised. That form of friendly attack must run in the family. Looking over, he found Faramir, Éowyn and Gimli all watching this with no small amazement and confusion on their faces. He looked over at Arwen and saw that though she was smiling at them, she was also under some strain from keeping them visible to the others. As much as he hated to disturb Lauren and Legolas, he knew it was time to stop the pillow fight. Seeing Lauren laughing and playful after how she had first appeared, he really did not want to stop them, but with Arwen's health at risk, he had no choice. He walked toward the two of them, determined to bring the battle to an end. He stopped within a few feet of them and watched them circling each other, a pillow in each hand, looking for a weakness in the other's defense.

As they finally noticed Aragorn standing near them, they stopped circling and regarded each other for a moment with a very mischievous look in their eyes. Simultaneously, they pivoted and launched pillows at Aragorn's head.

Aragorn ducked sideways to avoid one pillow and brought his hand up to easily block the other pillow. He had to laugh at the disappointed expressions on their faces. "I grew up with the twins, do not forget. I have many years experience at avoiding dual pillow assaults." He held up a hand toward them as they took it as a challenge and raised the other pillows. "Enough. This is quite amusing, but Arwen is only able to keep us visible for a short time, and I believe the others would like to meet you while they can still see you, Lauren."

"Oh, yeah, I kind of forgot that part," Lauren said. She straightened up and dropped her pillow to the floor. There were several feathers drifting around them as Legolas had chosen to fight with goose down pillows. "Legolas, you have a few feathers in your hair."

Legolas looked her over. "As do you."

Lauren grinned at him. "At least they're imaginary, so the cleanup is a snap." With that, she snapped her fingers out of a sense of drama, and the pillows and stray feathers all vanished. She gave Aragorn a slightly sheepish smile. "OK, I think I'm ready to meet everyone."

Sweeping his hand toward the others, Aragorn gestured for Lauren to approach them. She led the way to go stand before Faramir, Éowyn, and Gimli.

"Faramir, Lady Éowyn, Gimli, this is my granddaughter from the future, Lauren." Aragorn made the introductions and watched to see what the reactions would be.

Éowyn was the first to step forward. "I am greatly pleased to make your acquaintance, milady. We have heard much about you, and I must say that the descriptions did not quite do you justice." A smile crept across her face. "Any woman who can so surprise Legolas in battle is one I would like to know better."

Lauren grinned back at her, her cheeks a little pink. "Well, let's just say I learned a lot from my older brother about the tactics of a pillow fight. Since I'm smaller, surprise is one of my greatest weapons. I seem to have lost most of our pillow fights, though. Too many of them ended up with him pinning me to the floor and tickling me until I gave in."

Éowyn gave her a completely understanding smile. "I too grew up with an older brother. He also taught me many things about battles, those done in play, as well as those for much higher stakes."

"Is he the one who taught you to use a sword?" Lauren asked with curiosity, remembering what Aragorn had told her about Éowyn riding to battle and destroying the Witch King.

"We learned together from a young age," Éowyn explained, "though we often practiced together."

Aragorn smiled to himself, he had thought that Lauren and Éowyn would get along well. He had a feeling, though, that if they were not interrupted, they would try to converse the entire night. "Lauren." Lauren looked over to him in question. Aragorn raised an eyebrow and glanced toward Faramir and Gimli.

"Sorry," Lauren said. "I didn't mean to ignore everyone else. But I think Éowyn and I have a lot in common. I do wish we had more time to sit and talk."

"As do I," Éowyn said. She stepped back to allow her husband to greet Lauren.

Faramir was still staring at Lauren, deep in thought. "I was unsure at first if you were who you claimed to be," he said slowly. "Now that I see you, the resemblance is unmistakable. You truly are one of King Elessar's descendants." He bowed his head toward her in respect. He would have given her this respect strictly for her bloodline, but he could not help feeling a great deal of respect for anyone who felt comfortable enough with his king and Legolas to get in a pillow fight with them. He counted them as his friends, but he would never have dreamed of treating them so familiarly.

Lauren glanced aside at Aragorn for a moment for a cue as to how to proceed. Faramir was apparently used to using a much more formal style of address with his king. Treating him too casually would make him very uncomfortable. "You are the Steward here, correct?" she asked carefully, feeling her way through this first meeting. He nodded in response. "And part of your duties are to protect the royal family from any perceived threat?" Another nod. "I hope you have decided that I am no threat to them. I would never dream of causing them any harm."

"I believe that you would not intend to harm them," Faramir said carefully.

Hearing an undertone in his voice, Lauren spoke again. "But you believe harm could come to them anyway from something I might do?"

"Not intentionally," Faramir re-iterated, "but I was concerned when they would not wake. I felt it necessary to stand guard and assure that they came to no harm while in your world."

"If I give you my word that I will do all in my power to protect them and keep them safe while they are in my world, will you accept that as a solemn vow? Will you trust that I will live up to it?" It was important to Lauren to gain Faramir's trust, simply because he was an important part of Aragorn's life.

Faramir studied her for a long moment, his eyes searching her face. He could not get past how familiar her eyes were. He found that he did believe her. She would do everything in her power to keep them safe while they were with her. He nodded and was rewarded with a blinding smile.

"Good," she said happily. "Now we're all friends, here, right?"

"Not quite," a voice grumbled from off to her right. Gimli walked up to her and glared upward into her face. "Little?"

Lauren's face flushed and she conjured a chair she could sit in so that she would be eye-level with the dwarf. "I am sorry for that comment, master Gimli. I meant nothing by it, I assure you. I was merely startled when you tried to cut me in two, and then when Legolas started laughing…well, I couldn't very well let him get away with it, could I? Besides, you did attempt to kill me. Could we just call it even and put this behind us?"

Realizing that Lauren had greater cause to be upset with him than he did with her, Gimli graciously agreed to let the matter drop. "Very well." He motioned her closer and leaned in to say in a loud whisper. "I was quite impressed with how easily you got the drop on the elf."

Lauren laughed merrily, thinking that she had found another ally if she ever wanted to pull a harmless prank on Legolas. She had a feeling that if anyone ever meant the elf harm, though, Gimli would be his staunchest defender. Though they were different in every respect, there was a true bond of friendship between them.

Gimli looked into Lauren's laughing face, then back at Aragorn. "And this is the woman you were afraid would harm herself?"

Aragorn's heart sank as he watched all traces of animation and humor drain from Lauren's face.

"Gimli," Legolas moaned the name softly as he saw Lauren's expression change. "That was not at all wise."

Lauren abruptly stood up and strode several paces away before turning to look back at them. The look in her eyes was the same one that Aragorn had seen the last night, the one that made him fear for her safety. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared off into the distance. "That fear was more justified than you know," she said softly. "After you left, I found myself back on the edge of a cliff. It seemed I was on top of the world, all alone." Her gaze drifted downward, and Aragorn knew she was once again staring into the abyss, the darkness that she had just fought her way out of. She was silent for a moment, and the others just stared at her, transfixed as she uncurled her arms and brought them out to her sides, held loosely away from her body as if she would attempt to fly. Aragorn felt his heart thunder in his chest as he realized how close she had come to trying to end it. "It would have been so easy," her voice was barely above a whisper, but carried easily in the room as no one dared to make any noise. "Just one step was all it would take." She leaned forward slightly and closed her eyes, and everyone else found themselves holding their breath. After a long, tense silence, she opened her eyes and shook her head, taking an involuntary step backwards and crossing her arms in a defensive posture again.

She looked up at Aragorn and saw the terrified expression on his face. "I couldn't do it, don't worry, Aragorn." Giving him a sardonic grin, she tried to reassure him. "Even if I had tried, I very likely would have changed my mind on the way down. But unlike those who try that in real life, I could have conjured up a soft landing. Besides," she added, her smile slipping away, "I could never do that to my parents. They've already been through far too much because of me. It would kill them to lose me like that."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Aragorn moved quickly to envelope her in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and he could feel her attempts to keep her breathing under control and not give in to the tears. Arwen swiftly joined them and wrapped her arms around them both.

Arwen gave a soft gasp as her arms closed around Lauren. She had had to open herself to the minds of all the individuals in the room to allow them all to see and hear each other, but once she touched Lauren, she was nearly overwhelmed by the force of Lauren's emotions. They were turbulent, chaotic, roiling and raging just below the surface. It was obvious to Arwen that Lauren's control of her emotions was thin and tattered right now. The humor and laughter of moments before were a form of release that Lauren desperately needed. Arwen was glad that Legolas had gone along with the pillow fight and thus gave Lauren a chance to work out some of her emotional turmoil, even if he had not realized that that was what she was doing. Arwen felt tears well in her own eyes as she stroked her hand down Lauren's head and back. It was impossible to feel this much of Lauren's pain and not react to it. Strangely enough, though, Arwen felt the strain of keeping them all visible lessen as she touched Aragorn and Lauren. It was much the same sensation as when her grandmother had steadied Arwen's abilities by sharing her own power with her during their lessons. She took a steadying breath and delved further into Lauren's mind and found a well of strength that Lauren had barely begun to tap. Such strength was expected from Aragorn, but not from Lauren. Arwen knew that the abilities of her line were very strong, and that though they dwindled throughout the years there were those, like Aragorn, who resembled the kings of old more than many previous generations of their ancestors. It seemed that Lauren was one such person. That only made sense, as she would have been unlikely to be able to reach them without such a reserve of power. Arwen only hoped that power would serve her well as Lauren struggled to recover from the physical and emotional pain that she was now in.

Lauren finally drew in a shaky breath and began to move away from Aragorn and Arwen, catching their hands and squeezing them briefly before stepping back and swiping quickly at her eyes. "I'm OK, now. Thank you."

Aragorn studied her face, which was calmer than it had been earlier. Her expression no longer made him fear for her safety, but neither was she smiling. This neutral emotion was probably the best they could hope for at this point in time.

Gimli had been watching Lauren's near-breakdown with a great deal of dismay. He looked back to Legolas now that things were calming down. "I didn't mean to…I would never have said that if I thought…" He was unable to express the regret he felt at taking away the laughing playful young woman he had first seen and replacing her with the terrifyingly desolate woman with the empty look in her eyes.

Legolas placed a hand on Gimli's shoulder and looked over at Lauren. "I know, Gimli. She has not yet regained her balance, and is walking the edge of a knife right now. She will recover in time… I hope." The last two words were muttered under his breath, and Gimli was unsure if Legolas had meant for him to hear them.

Looking around at the others, Lauren flushed self-consciously. "I'm sorry about that," she said. "I just seem to be an emotional yo-yo today. I'm better now."

"Yo-yo?" Éowyn asked curiously.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting that we don't have the same frame of reference. A yo-yo is a children's toy in my time." She conjured a yo-yo and demonstrated what it did. As they watched the yo-yo bob up and down on its string, they nodded in understanding of her comparison. "I haven't done this in ages," she commented as she played with the toy for awhile longer before letting it disappear. The corner of her mouth quirked upward slightly. "I could keep you all entertained for hours just by showing you common children's toys from my time. There are a lot of fun ones. Ooh, I bet you'd be fascinated by a slinky."

"A what?" Legolas asked at the unfamiliar word.

"We do not have time," Arwen answered suddenly. "I cannot hold the connection for much longer."

Aragorn glanced in concern at Arwen before heading over to stand beside Faramir. "I do not intend to leave Lauren alone as long as she needs someone to stay with her. I am sure you can see why I might be reluctant to leave her on her own now." Faramir nodded his understanding. He had been truly terrified earlier by her behavior. As one of the royal family, however distant, he felt it his responsibility to protect her as well. But how would he protect her from herself, especially when they resided in different worlds? He knew full well that Aragorn would do anything in his power to protect Lauren, and he was sure Lauren would do whatever was necessary to keep Aragorn safe, so they should be quite safe in each other's company. "Do not worry if we do not wake when you think we should," Aragorn was saying to Faramir. "We may be with Lauren for quite some time."

Faramir inclined his head to his king. "Yes, my lord. I understand. I will still stand guard here, but I will not send for the healers if you happen to sleep longer than I may wish." He glanced over at Lauren. "Keep her safe, milord."

"I intend to," Aragorn said, looking back at Lauren.

Lauren walked over to join them. "It looks like it's time to say goodbye. I wish we had had more time to get to know each other, but I am pleased to have met all of you." She shook her head ruefully. "Though I dread to know what you must think of me now, between the pillow fight and the mini-breakdown."

"We think you have been through something horrible and are doing your best to recover from it," Éowyn said. "It is something many of us have also experienced. Be well, Lauren from the future."

"Be well, Éowyn, Lady of Rohan and Gondor," Lauren responded, smiling and bowing her head toward Éowyn.

Lauren said farewell to Faramir, then turned to Gimli.

"I'm sorry," he said abruptly. "I never meant to bring you sadness." He looked down at the floor, hating the reaction his words had brought about. He glanced back up at her as she began speaking.

She smiled down at him. "It wasn't your fault. No matter what else I'm doing or feeling, the sadness and pain are there, just below the surface, trying to get out. If it wasn't your comment, it would have been something else. I don't blame you. I know you didn't intend to harm me at that point. Now, the bit with the axe on the other hand…" There was a gleam of humor in her eyes that he was glad to see once more.

"You startled me," he blustered, going along with her teasing. "I wasn't expecting to have a strange woman appear out of thin air before me." He paused. "Though I am very glad that I was unable to actually touch you with the axe."

"That's sweet," she said lightly. "I have to say that I'm pretty glad as well. That would have hurt." She rubbed her stomach as if she could feel the axe going through her middle. A gleam of humor flashed in her eyes as she leaned over and placed a kiss in the air in the general vicinity of Gimli's cheek. As she could not actually touch him, he couldn't feel it, but he blushed bright red anyway and looked down at the floor. "It was good to meet you, master dwarf."

"Go on now, lass," he said, not meeting her eyes. "It was good to meet you, too."

After the last of the goodbyes were said, Lauren looked back to Arwen, who released the connection with a sigh of relief. The four of them faded from the awareness of the other three occupants of the room.

Lauren turned back to face Aragorn. "I enjoyed meeting your friends. You are lucky to have them. Did you have anything else planned for tonight?"

"Would you like to see more of the palace and Minas Tirith?"

"Sure, lead the way," she said, following closely behind as Aragorn and Arwen walked through the wall into the nearly empty corridors beyond.

Lauren was greatly impressed by the palace itself, the architecture, the tapestries, furnishings, statues and other decorations that filled the palace. When Aragorn led her out to the courtyard though, Lauren gasped at the sheer grandeur of the scenery. She could see the plains spread out all around them, with the mountains of Mordor off to one side, and Osgiliath off in the distance. That once-ruined city was looking much better as the repairs neared completion. Rushing to the ledge ringing the courtyard, Lauren gazed down in awe at the city below them. There were seven levels of white stone, with a main road winding through all the levels from the main gates up to the gate guarding the uppermost level. Lauren had never seen anything like this in all of her travels or studies of history.

"This is amazing," she breathed out in awe.

Aragorn smiled, pleased that she found his city beautiful. "I am pleased that you like it."

"Oh, like doesn't even begin to cover it," she said softly, gazing around them.

"Would you care to wander the streets of the city, or would you prefer to explore other places in our world?" Aragorn asked her.

"Oh, I would love to see everything there is in this world. But since our time is limited, I will trust you to decide. Where would you like to visit?"

Aragorn looked at Arwen. A smile crossed her face as she determined from his expression what his next words would be.

"Home," Aragorn breathed softly. "Rivendell."


	18. Homecomings

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters.

A/N2: This story can be considered AU in that I assume that Gilraen was killed along with Arathorn, leaving Elrond as Aragorn's only 'parent'.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Eighteen - Homecomings

Lauren smiled as Aragorn suggested returning home to Rivendell. They had told her how beautiful Rivendell was, how peaceful and serene, and honestly, it sounded like a place she could really use right now. "That sounds good. We'll have to switch back to the dream world in order to see it, though. That is, unless you can walk there very quickly."

Shaking his head, Aragorn looked back at her. "No, Rivendell is many days travel on horseback from here. We could not travel there within one night on foot. We will have to return to the dream world as you suggest."

"Wait, let me get one last look around before we leave." Lauren stood for many long moments staring out around them before turning to face the others. "OK. We can go now."

With a thought, the view of Minas Tirith faded around them with a shimmer, indicating that they were leaving the 'real' world of Aragorn, Legolas and Arwen behind. The scene that replaced it was yet another wooded area.

Lauren looked around as she sensed something different about these woods. She took a deep breath and felt a sense of peace begin to come over her as she took in the deep, rich scent of the trees around her. "Where are we? This doesn't look quite the way you've described Rivendell."

Aragorn pointed out the path they stood on and gestured down the length of it. "Rivendell is just around the next bend in the path. I did not want us to simply appear in the midst of Rivendell. It is most fully appreciated if you first view it from this path. Also, there is a small matter I must bring to your attention."

Lauren looked at him expectantly as he continued.

"Rivendell is inhabited by elves."

Lauren's expression grew rather confused. "Yeah, I knew that. Do you have a point in there somewhere?"

Arwen and Legolas muffled their laughter as Aragorn tried to explain. "When I mentioned Legolas while in this world, he appeared, did he not?"

"Yeah," Lauren drew the word out slowly, beginning to see where he was going with this. "So if you happen to imagine or mention other elves that you would expect to see here, they might appear and be real as well?"

"The possibility exists," Aragorn said carefully. "I do not know if this will happen, but you may want to consider the chance that all you meet here may truly be here."

"The twins?" Lauren said excitedly. She had wanted to meet them for quite awhile now. After hearing so many stories about them from the others, she was intensely curious about the sons of Elrond.

"Yes, there is a chance that Elladan and Elrohir will appear. If they are asleep, and if they are able to find their way here from Rivendell," Aragorn emphasized the ifs in that statement. "They are some distance away, and we do not know if they can be summoned over such distances."

Raising an eyebrow, Lauren gave him an incredulous look. "Aragorn, you and I are separated by twenty thousand years and probably half a world's distance. I doubt a distance of a few days on horseback will make much difference."

Aragorn tilted his head to the side and gave a half shrug. "You may be correct, but I did not wish to get your hopes too high."

"But Estel," Arwen said, stressing his elven name. "I thought that was what you did best."

"Estel?" Lauren asked. "Is that a nickname or something?" She looked back and forth between Aragorn and Arwen, waiting for an explanation.

"It is the name given me when I came to stay in the House of Elrond," Aragorn explained. "It would not have been safe for me to be known by my true name. Estel is an elvish word that means hope."

"So your name when you were growing up was Hope?" An amused look crossed her face. "I knew someone named Hope when I was growing up. She had brown hair and green eyes, and sat across the room from me in the second grade."

"She?" Legolas asked in amusement, giving Aragorn a sidelong look before turning his attention back to Lauren.

"Uh huh," Lauren said, nodding and grinning at Legolas. "Hope is pretty much a girl's name where I come from." She laughed at the look of glee on Legolas' face. Apparently, Legolas would never let Aragorn forget this one. "Well, Hope, shall we be going?"

She took one step down the path and then stopped, looking down at her blouse and jeans. "Wait a minute. If I'm going to actually be meeting a group of elves, I need to not be dressed in jeans. I'd kind of like to make a better first impression on them than I did on Faramir, Éowyn and Gimli." She looked over at Arwen. "I may need a little help with this." Closing her eyes for a moment, Lauren pictured the most beautiful Renaissance dress she had ever seen in a magazine. As she felt the weight of the silks and velvet materials of the dress drape around her, she opened her eyes and looked back at Arwen. "Is this all right?"

"Yes, it will do very well," Arwen said. "Though I would like to add a few things, if you will allow it?"

"Please," Lauren said. "I did ask for your help."

Arwen walked around her and touched Lauren's neck, adding an intricate necklace of silver and small blue gemstones to match the blue of the dress. She also added some specialized stitching to the bodice and a silver belt at her waist. As a final touch, she placed a circlet of silver on her head. Arwen looked at Lauren with approval in her eyes. "You truly look to be a daughter of kings. None could now see you and not know who you are."

Looking at her casual traveling dress, Aragorn's ranger attire, and Legolas' traveling clothes, her voice acquired a wry touch to it. "And of all of us, you are the only one who appears to be royalty." Arwen swept her hand down in a graceful gesture, and she was suddenly attired in one of her favorite dresses, not one of the truly formal ones she wore as queen of Gondor and Arnor, but one of the dresses she had worn while living in Imladris and Lothlorien. It was a soft cream color that seemed to shine and was the softest fabric she had ever felt. A silver circlet of her own graced her dark hair.

Lauren looked at Aragorn and Legolas. "Your turn." She watched with curiosity, waiting to see what they would change into.

Aragorn chose not to wear the full regalia of the King, as it would not seem right to wear such in Imladris. Instead, he chose to wear his favorite set of silken robes, something he had worn many times in Imladris. The overtunic was done in shades of black and deep green with silver stitching, while the leggings worn with it were black. He would not wear a crown here, but as a son of Elrond, he was perfectly entitled to wear the silver circlet that the elven lords wore. He smirked at Legolas, the last to choose his new attire. "For once in our lives, I seem to be the better dressed."

"Not for long," Legolas said. He chose to don the attire that he had worn to Aragorn's coronation, the silken clothing and circlet that announced his status as a Prince of Mirkwood. He turned to look at Arwen and Lauren, and couldn't help the smirk that crossed his face at Lauren's admiring look.

"You two clean up really nice," Lauren said, taking a long appreciative look at both of them.

"Clean up?" Legolas asked as if insulted. "I had no need to clean up, for I was not dirty."

"It's an expression," Lauren explained, grinning at his affronted expression. "It means that you look really good in the more formal style of clothing."

Legolas tilted his head toward her. "That is acceptable then."

"Prissy elf," Aragorn muttered under his breath, knowing full well the elf would hear him.

"Filthy human," Legolas retorted easily. "For you, it is not merely an expression. To look like you now do, you normally must go through much effort to 'clean up'."

As Aragorn glowered at Legolas, and tried to come up with a retort, Lauren turned to Arwen, laughter in her voice. "Are they always like this?"

"Since nearly the first day they met, so I understand," Arwen replied, watching the two with the same amused expression that was on Lauren's face.

Crossing her arms, Lauren looked at the arguing man and elf. "If you two are done?" They gave her a sheepish nod and she turned to look down the path leading to Imladris. "Are we ready to go now?"

"I believe we are," Aragorn said. He walked over to Arwen and took her arm in his as they walked the familiar path toward home.

Legolas offered his own arm to Lauren, who gladly took it as they followed behind on the path.

As they rounded the bend and Lauren caught her first glimpse of Rivendell, she stopped dead in her tracks, forcing Legolas to stop with her or risk pulling her off her feet.

"Oh, wow," her voice was a mere whisper.

Her eyes took in the view before her with amazement and awe clear in their depths. The valley that housed the settlement of Imladris dropped away down from the path on which they stood. The waterfall at the other end was barely audible, but could be clearly seen from their vantage point. Lauren watched the water tumble from the rocks above and crash to the river below, creating a great cloud of mist. It was a long moment before her eyes left the waterfall to drift toward the houses and buildings nestled into the valley. She stood for a long silent moment taking in the high graceful arches that were prevalent on many of the buildings, the intricate carvings and details, the open architecture, and the way it all blended into the trees and rocks that made up the valley. It was the most elaborate and yet simple place that she had ever seen. It seemed to welcome all who entered, and beckoned to weary travelers to come and make themselves at home.

"Wow," she repeated the word softly. It was all she was capable of saying at that moment.

"I believe you have already said that," Legolas said with an amused chuckle as he watched her expression.

She looked back at him, having forgotten for a moment that he was still there. "I've never seen anything like it," she said, her voice still in a whisper. It seemed wrong somehow to speak any louder and disturb the peace that lay like a blanket over the scene. "It's absolutely breathtaking."

"It must be, as you have not spoken louder than a whisper since laying eyes on Imladris," Legolas teased. He was finding her reaction very humorous.

Taking her eyes off of the scenery, she glanced sideways at Legolas. "I can't quite bring myself to say anything that might shatter the serenity that surrounds this place."

Legolas laughed outright at that. "You can do nothing that has not already been done here by either the twins, or Aragorn. With the three of them in residence, there was very little peace to be found here. Though perhaps you could prove me wrong, as you have the same streak of mischief that seems to run in the family."

"If I remember correctly, you were never an innocent party in much of that mischief, as you call it." A voice from behind them caused them to turn suddenly to face the newcomer, Legolas dropping Lauren's arm as they moved.

------

Aragorn and Arwen had not noticed when Lauren and Legolas stopped on the path behind them. They continued for a few paces before stopping and staring at the beauty of their home. They had been back a time or two to visit the twins, but the first sight of their home was always bittersweet as they were forced once again to realize that Elrond no longer lived on Middle-earth. He had always been there to greet them when they returned from a journey, and finding him absent always sent a shock through the both of them.

Aragorn swallowed past a lump in his throat and wrapped his arm around Arwen's shoulders. A tear trailed slowly down her face.

"He is not here," Aragorn said softly. "Somehow, I always expect Ada to be waiting in the doorway for us."

"As do I," Arwen said. "It is difficult to be here without Ada. Imladris is not the same without him. This was always his realm. Imladris and Lord Elrond were nearly synonymous." She looked up at her husband, then laid her head on his shoulder. "I miss him, Aragorn."

Kissing the top of her head, Aragorn squeezed her shoulders in sympathy. "So do I, my love. So do I."

They remembered that they were not alone when they heard Legolas laugh on the path behind them. As they turned to walk back and rejoin Lauren and Legolas, they heard the tail end of Legolas' conversation with Lauren.

"You can do nothing that has not already been done here by either the twins, or Aragorn. With the three of them in residence, there was very little peace to be found here. Though perhaps you could prove me wrong, as you have the same streak of mischief that seems to run in the family."

Aragorn opened his mouth to respond to Legolas' comment, but an unexpected voice broke in instead.

"If I remember correctly, you were never an innocent party in much of that mischief, as you call it." It was a voice that Aragorn recognized instantly, and he hurried up to the top of the path with Arwen quickly following.

"Elladan!" Aragorn exclaimed as the elf stepped into view from behind a tree, followed immediately by his twin.

Legolas protested Elladan's claim. "No, I believe you are mistaken, Elladan. I would never attempt to disturb the peace of this beautiful valley, nor give Lord Elrond any reason to dread my return."

"Other than the dread caused by wondering what shape you two would be bringing yourselves back in?" Elrohir asked with a smile.

Elladan smiled at that, but continued his original line of thought. "Truly? I seem to remember a certain disruptive event while you were in residence. Lord Glorfindel threatened you, did he not? I believe he claimed that your status as Prince of Mirkwood would not save you if he ever managed to get his hands on you. You left rather suddenly after that. Can you truly claim you were innocent?"

Elrohir was laughing as he remembered the event Elladan was referring to. "I have to admit, Legolas. That prank was one of the best you have ever tried. It was even worthy of us."

Legolas glared at the twins, and glanced back to see the very interested look on Lauren's face. He had to head this off before they ended up telling Lauren everything. It was not exactly something he wanted her to know. "That was a very long time ago, I was much younger then," he protested. "And it cannot hold a candle to some of the pranks you have pulled." He was hoping that the reminder would quiet them. He had far more stories about their pranks than they had on him. "I do not see any purpose in discussing it now."

"Oh, no," Lauren said with a wide grin. "This is definitely something I want to hear. Please continue." She had been staring at the twins from the moment they made themselves known. She seemed quite unable to take her eyes off of them.

At this, both elves looked at Lauren, taking note of her for the first time.

"Pardon us," Elladan began. "I do not believe we have made your acquaintance." He studied her for a moment, his eyebrows rising in confusion as he took in her appearance. Besides the familiar coloring and features of the Dúnedain, the circlet on her brow marked her as belonging to the house of Elrond. Though he did not remember ever having met her, she was apparently kin to him. He looked quizzically toward Aragorn for an explanation.

Aragorn smiled at the confusion plain on Elladan's face. He looked over to see the same confusion on Elrohir's face. They had apparently noticed the circlet on Lauren's brow. Arwen had not been making an idle comment when she said that none could look at Lauren now and not know who she was. The circlet that she had placed on Lauren was marked with symbols of both the house of Elrond and the royal line of Gondor and Númenor. It was a design that could be worn only by their children and future descendants.

With a wide grin, Aragorn made the introductions. "Lauren, meet your uncles. The one on the left is Elladan and the other one is Elrohir. 'Dan, 'Ro, meet Lauren, your distant niece."

This introduction only confused the twins more, and they stared at Lauren, trying to figure out how such a relationship was possible. Aragorn and Arwen only had one child, and Eldarion was only seven.

Lauren nodded acknowledgment at the twins. "It is my pleasure to meet you both. I've heard all kinds of stories about you."

"Do not believe a word of it, if you have heard such from our brother and Legolas," Elrohir retorted absently. His mind was only partly on the conversation, but he could not let such a statement go unchallenged. He was sure that any stories that Aragorn and Legolas would have told would not have made them look very good.

Smiling, Lauren finally dragged her eyes away from the twins and looked back at Legolas. "There's just no such thing as an ugly elf, is there?"

The twins looked taken aback by the question, while Aragorn and Legolas just laughed. They knew all too well what she was thinking.

"What do you mean by that?" Elladan asked. He was still off-balance, trying to figure out who she was, or he might not have asked the question.

Lauren looked him up and down briefly before looking back into his face with an appreciative expression in her eyes. "You're really attractive. Quite magnificent, actually." Laughter lit up her eyes as she saw him blush. Glancing over at Elrohir, she gave him the same look. "And there's two of you. Yum. Aragorn, can I have an elf to take home? You seem to have several, you can surely spare one." The laughter spilled out of her as she saw Elrohir acquire the same pink hue as his brother.

"Lauren!" Aragorn reproached her with his tone of voice, though there was laughter in his eyes. "That is not appropriate with those you are related to."

She just looked back at him with a smirk on her face. "Oh, don't be jealous, Aragorn. I called you gorgeous, didn't I? Besides, I'm much further away on the family tree than even you and Arwen are, so I don't think you have any room to talk about hitting on relatives, now do you?"

Legolas could take it no longer and burst out laughing as Aragorn also started to blush. Lauren seemed to find pleasure in saying things to embarrass them all.

"Aragorn?" There was a plaintive tone in Elrohir's voice and a helpless confused look on his face as he asked Aragorn to explain more of Lauren's origins.

Aragorn stopped glaring at Lauren and looked back to the twins. He grew serious as he took pity on them. "Lauren is our distant granddaughter from the future." Somehow, that explanation didn't seem to help matters any as the twins only looked more confused. Deciding more details may help, he continued. "She was injured several days ago and while her body lies in a coma, her mind created a dream world for her to reside in as she heals. That first night, I found myself in her created realm. We have met every night since. She is near to waking up, and we thought to show her our world for a change. Though we have been able to summon both Arwen and Legolas, I was unsure if you would be able to join us in this realm. I am glad to see you both. I did want Lauren to meet you." He gave his granddaughter a mock glare. "I had hoped that she would behave herself, but I see that was a futile hope."

She glared back at him, but before she could respond, Elrohir asked a question.

"From the future? How far into the future?"

Looking back to Elrohir, she paused in thought for a moment. "Well, we kind of figured out that I'm from about twenty thousand years from now, give or take a millennia or two. It's kind of impossible to determine an exact figure, but that's about what I came up with."

"Twenty thousand years?" Elladan asked in amazement. "And you are able to communicate with us?"

Lauren shrugged. "Don't ask me to explain it. You're the ones who know more about the extra gifts that run in the family. This is the first time I've had anything like this happen to me."

"Her gifts are strong," Arwen commented softly.

Elrohir glanced over at Arwen. It surprised him that the gifts would be so strong after so many generations, but he supposed it was not impossible. He looked back to Lauren.

"And are the women of your time all so bold as you seem to be?" he asked Lauren with a raised eyebrow.

"Some are," she allowed with a slight duck of her head. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and a slightly wicked grin on her lips. "Some of them are much bolder."

"And you?" Elladan asked tilting his head in curiosity. Her phrasing made him wonder. "Would you truly say such things upon meeting someone?"

"Well…" she dragged out the word as she thought. "Perhaps not. I usually only say things like that with my friends, who know not to take it seriously. I wouldn't be likely to just walk up to some strange guy and tell him that I find him attractive. You never know what kind of person he might be. That's actually a bit dangerous, as you really don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention." She shrugged. "I feel safe here, though, and kind of allowed my mouth to run free. I apologize if I offended you. I certainly didn't mean to."

"I took no offense," Elladan hastened to assure her, holding a hand out in a placating gesture. "I just did not know how to react. It is not the type of behavior I am experienced with."

"Yeah, I know," Lauren said, looking away in some embarrassment before looking back to him. "I forgot that you aren't used to me like Aragorn and Legolas are. I didn't mean for my sense of humor to cause you any discomfort. My head is just in a really strange place right now." She didn't see the looks of confusion the others directed her way with that unusual phrase. "Seeing myself like I did, knowing the extent of my injuries…it just threw me for a loop, and I haven't quite been myself since then."

Elladan and Elrohir exchanged confused looks. They hadn't understood much of what she just said. There seemed to be many things of which they were unaware.

Her face paled suddenly, and she swayed where she stood. Legolas quickly grabbed her arm to steady her and conjured a large stone near the path to serve as a chair as he guided her to sit down upon it. "Lauren? What is happening?" He could see the lines of pain etched clearly on her face, and the short breaths she was taking worried him. Lauren didn't respond for a long time, but curled in upon herself, leaning over her legs and resting her head on her knees. She had one arm wrapped around her ribs and her other hand clutched the material of her dress in a fist so tight that her knuckles were white from the strain.

Legolas stood beside her, and placed his hand on her shoulder, offering his support and comfort in the only way he knew. Aragorn crouched down on her other side, placing his hand gently over her tightened fist. She turned her hand over and clutched Aragorn's hand in a grip so tight that he felt as if she would stop the flow of blood to his fingers. Arwen and the twins gathered around them, wanting to help if they could, though Elladan and Elrohir had no idea what was happening.

"Lauren?" Aragorn called her name gently as he felt the tension begin to ease and her grip loosened slightly on his hand. Taking several slow, ragged breaths, she slowly straightened up into a sitting position once again. After one look at her pale face, Aragorn's concern grew. He reached up with his other hand to wipe away the trace of tears from her cheeks. "What happened?"

She looked at him, and he saw the pain receding from her eyes. "I've been in some pain ever since yesterday," she admitted as she ran her hands shakily over her face. "It hasn't been that bad, for the most part, more like a bone-deep ache that I can't get away from. But I've been able to ignore it, mostly. Believe it or not, laughter helps. If I can keep my mind off of the pain and focus on other things, it's not so bad. I know you think my sense of humor has been all over the place today, but there's a reason behind my attempts to keep things light and humorous. I just need to focus on other things. When I stopped to think about what I saw yesterday, the pain just slammed into me from nowhere. I hadn't ever felt it that strongly before." Her voice was shaky as she explained.

"Are you able to walk to Imladris?" Legolas asked, looking over his shoulder at the Last Homely House. "You will be able to rest more comfortably there."

Lauren looked down the length of the path. "I can stand and probably walk for a little ways, but not for as long as that path appears."

Making up his mind, Legolas gently scooped her up in his arms. "Then I will carry you there."

A flash of humor lit her face as her color began to slowly return. Snuggling more comfortably into his arms, she draped an arm around his shoulders and looked into his face. "Now, you won't hear me complaining in the least here. I'd be more than happy to stay in your arms all day long, but you seem to be forgetting that we're in a dream world. We don't have to walk anywhere we don't want to." With a gentle wave of the hand that wasn't draped around Legolas' neck, they were all suddenly standing in the courtyard in front of the dwelling that Aragorn, Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir had grown up in.

Legolas could not help blushing a little as the others laughed lightly at the satisfied look on Lauren's face as she remained in Legolas' arms. She truly did look quite comfortable with no desire to move. Looking down into her face, Legolas saw the smirk growing as she looked back at him. There was very little pain evident now, and Legolas decided that a little bit of embarrassment on his part was a small price to pay. "May I put you down now?" he asked, humor in his own voice.

"Must you?" the disappointment in her tone contrasted with the humor in her eyes, and he knew she was now teasing him. He gently lowered her to stand on her own feet, taking care in case her legs were causing her pain. A brief wince that disappeared as quickly as it appeared was all the sign he had that her pain had not gone, but merely faded.

"Estel? Arwen?" A voice from behind them caused all of them to turn suddenly. Aragorn and Arwen gasped, and Arwen took a single step forward.

"Ada?"

"What is this place? Are you well? I felt that you were calling for me." Elrond stood before them in the doorway with a hand on the doorframe. He began down the steps leading to the courtyard where the others stood.

"Is it truly you?" Aragorn asked in amazement. "Are you really here?"

"It is I, Estel. I was sleeping, then found myself wandering the empty halls of Imladris. I heard voices and came to see who had arrived. I had thought myself to be dreaming, until I saw you here." With those words, Elrond reached the bottom of the steps, and Aragorn and Arwen threw themselves forward into his outstretched arms.

"We missed you, Ada," Arwen said, burying her face in her father's shoulder.

Aragorn was so close to tears that he was unable to speak, but merely tightened his arms around his father. He soon felt the arms of both twins enfolding the three of them, as Elrond hugged all of his children.

Lauren had been watching as a dark haired elf walked down the steps toward them. Despite the concern and confusion showing on his face, there was a serenity that seemed to emanate from him. It was this that made Lauren think he was older than any of the elves she had yet met. Legolas and the twins seemed to radiate a barely suppressed energy. She had noticed that though Legolas could be utterly still at times, he always seemed to be on watch, aware of everything around him. The elf before them had a different sense about him. She felt herself calming, just being near him. It was odd, but the edge of near hysteria that seemed to have been guiding her movements and reactions tonight began to bleed away. A happy smile crossed her face as she watched the reunion between parent and children. Aragorn and Arwen's reactions told her that this was Lord Elrond, their father.

Though Lauren didn't know how he could be here, as he had sailed to that place beyond the realms of this world called Valinor, she was very glad that he was here. It seemed like there was a way that she could pay Aragorn and Arwen back for all they had done for her after all. Legolas touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see a stunned expression on his face. He looked nearly as happy to see Elrond as the others, though he obviously did not wish to intrude on their reunion.

Elrond finally released his children and they pulled away far enough to be able to converse with each other. Aragorn finally answered the questions Elrond had asked. "We are well, Ada. There is no need for concern. We are in a dream world, created by one I would have you meet. When we came to Imladris in this realm, we were unable to contain our pain at not having you here to meet us. As we wished you here, so you felt our call and came. I still do not understand how you came to be here, but I am truly glad you are."

The lines of worry eased from Elrond's expression as he heard that his children were well and there was no need for concern. Aragorn took in the serene, content look on his father's face. It was a look he had seen too seldom. When Elrond had lived here in Middle-earth, he was ever burdened with the knowledge that Sauron's power was growing, and his concern over the fate of the world. Even after the ring was destroyed and Sauron's power was broken, Elrond had not been truly free of cares and worries. He rejoiced in the fact that Aragorn had lived to fulfill his destiny, but he had had to face the fact that Arwen had forsaken her immortality to stay with Aragorn. Winning the war against Sauron had been a bittersweet victory for him, knowing that he would lose not only his adopted son to mortality, but his only daughter as well. When the trials and worries of this world had weighed too heavily upon him, he and the other ring-bearers had sailed from the shores of Middle-earth. In all of the time Aragorn had known Elrond, he had never seen him without the weight of those concerns and worries. The change was miraculous. A sense of peace and happiness surrounded his father, seeming to come from his father, as if he was happiness personified.

"You look well, Ada," Arwen commented, seeing the change as clearly as Aragorn did. She could feel the change in him. However, she had seen that look on her father's face more often than Aragorn, long ago before her mother sailed. Her father had always had many responsibilities, but he had become much more grave and stern after her mother left for Valinor. He was still capable of great love and moments of levity, but part of her father had disappeared that day. As she looked at him, she could see that he was whole again. There was a tranquillity about him now.

"As do you, my daughter," Elrond replied. He could clearly see that Arwen was happy with her decision and her life. She was no longer conflicted about her choices. Her happiness was all he had ever wished, and seeing her now, he finally felt more at peace with her decision. Hugging her to him once more, he saw two others standing back apart from the others. Elrond released her and looked up to greet Legolas and the unknown woman at his side. "Legolas, I am pleased to see you here. Is all well with you?"

Legolas inclined his head in a gesture of respect. "Yes, hir-nín. I am well, and I am very pleased to see you as well."

Elrond smiled at the elf he considered as one of his children, then looked more closely at the woman standing next to him. His brow furrowed as he read the symbols on her headpiece. This woman was claiming kinship to his house as well as to that of the royal house of Gondor and Arnor. Only Aragorn and Arwen's children should be able to wear that circlet. But surely she was much too old to be one of Aragorn and Arwen's children.

Looking back to Aragorn and Arwen, he found them staring back at him with expectant expressions. "I realize that time passes differently in Valinor, but I have surely not been gone so long that you have a grown daughter already?"

Aragorn smiled and gestured for Lauren to come closer. He held out his hand for hers to lead her to stand before Elrond. "Ada, this is Lauren. She is visiting us from the future, many generations hence. Though we do not know how many generations lie between us, this is our granddaughter, and therefore, yours as well."

"Lauren, this is our father, Lord Elrond." Aragorn released her hand as he presented her to his father.

She bowed her head respectfully toward him and lowered her eyes for a moment before raising them to meet his once more. "Lord Elrond, I am pleased and honored to make your acquaintance at last. I have heard much of your wisdom, your kindness and your love for your family."

Catching a glimpse of Aragorn's rather stunned expression, she glanced over at him in confusion. "What?"

"I have never heard you speak in this manner," Aragorn explained. He could barely believe how formal and respectful she was being.

A smirk quirked her lips as she realized what Aragorn was referring to. "I can be very polite…when I want to be."

Elrond could not help laughing at the interaction between Aragorn and this very distant relation of theirs. Apparently, the sense of playfulness still ran strong in this bloodline.

"Visiting from the future? I believe I would like to hear this tale." He gestured for the others to precede him to the hall of fire where they could make themselves comfortable and he could seek the answers to the many questions he had. His eyes narrowed in thought as he saw Legolas offer his arm to Lauren. It seemed to Elrond that the gesture was made as a form of support. This idea was reinforced as he caught a glimpse of a worried expression on Legolas' face, and the slow, stiff movements of the young woman. Whatever her story was, it was clear that not all was well.

Elrond took his seat in the hall of fire and watched with interest as the others arranged themselves about the room. Arwen took a seat to Elrond's right, close enough to reach out and place her hand on his. Aragorn sat next to her on the cushioned couch, and Legolas seated Lauren in a chair near Aragorn facing Elrond before taking a perch on the arm of the chair. Elladan and Elrohir took seats to Elrond's left, completing the small circle. Looking at those around him, Elrond felt a great sense of satisfaction to have all of his children, whether blood or adopted, around him once again. He counted Legolas in that number, but there seemed to be one extra. The story behind her appearance here interested him greatly.

"Would someone care to explain how we happen to have a visitor from the future?" Elrond asked the room in general, looking over toward Elladan and Elrohir.

"We would not be the ones to ask," Elladan said. "We have only just arrived ourselves."

"We were told very little more than you have been," Elrohir added in a tone that was bordering on a complaint. He glared over at Aragorn and Legolas. "However, they seem to be quite familiar with our…guest."

Elrond's eyebrow rose at the disgruntled tone of Elrohir's voice. Elladan and Elrohir had never liked secrets being kept from them. He knew their curiosity must be nearly consuming them if they did not know everything their brother did about this young woman. Elrond looked over at his youngest son with a questioning expression on his face.

Aragorn ducked his head in acknowledgment of the question and proceeded to tell the story of how he and Lauren met in the dream world. He skipped over many details, as they did not have time to cover all that he had seen and experienced in the dream world. In his summary, he did try to tell the story as it had occurred in time. Though he did not find it necessary to describe his reaction to first seeing Lauren in what she had termed a swimsuit, he decided to detail Lauren's reaction to seeing Legolas for the first time, to the twin's great amusement.

Lauren flushed slightly as she remembered ogling Legolas when he first arrived, and the twins hooted with laughter.

"So you are also able to blush!" Elladan exclaimed.

"Give me a break," Lauren muttered. "It was the first time I'd ever seen an elf. I can't be held responsible for my initial reaction."

"Elladan, that is hardly polite," Elrond reprimanded his eldest son with a small frown on his face. Surely he had taught his sons better manners.

"But Ada, you do not know what she said to us upon our first meeting," Elrohir protested.

Lauren shrugged unrepentantly. "I simply remarked that every elf I had met so far seemed exceedingly attractive. Is that so wrong? You've surely had similar reactions among humans who had never seen elves before."

"We have never had one ask our brother if he had an elf to spare for you to take home," Elladan said sternly, a hint of humor twinkling in his eyes.

"But you're all so pretty, I just couldn't help it," Lauren said with such an innocent look on her face that Legolas and Aragorn burst out laughing. They had become much more used to her mannerisms, and even if Legolas was included in her teasing, it did not bother him nearly as much as it did the twins. Once again, both Elladan and Elrohir had turned slightly pink at her words.

Elrond's eyebrows rose at that and he hurriedly stifled a laugh. Apparently, this young woman could more than hold her own among his children, and needed no protection from him.

Lauren glanced sideways at Elrond and quickly dropped her eyes with some guilt. "Forgive me, my lord. I seem to be displaying my admittedly odd sense of humor at inappropriate moments." Elrond opened his mouth to reply when her eyes rose to meet his once more. "They just make it so easy."

At the bright amusement in her eyes, Elrond chuckled and glanced over at all of his sons. "I see much of your humor in this one. I have no doubt she is of our bloodline."

Ducking her head in some embarrassment, Lauren glanced around at the others. She wasn't quite sure how to take that, but she thought she had just been accepted into the family. Looking back up at Elrond, she tried to explain her behavior. "I grew up with two brothers, and find myself treating your sons as I would my brothers, though of course I tease my brothers about different things. I will try to restrain my sense of humor, at least until this story is complete."

Elrond nodded at her and looked to Aragorn to return to the original topic. There was still much he wanted to learn about this young woman. "Aragorn, would you be so kind as to continue where you left off?" He listened intently as Aragorn spun a condensed version of his time with Lauren, his account broken occasionally by Legolas or Lauren when they felt he had skipped something important, or remembered something incorrectly.

When Aragorn reached the part about their visit to Lauren's world and seeing the extent of her injuries, he glanced over to gauge her reaction. Lauren had grown pale again and had been very silent for several minutes now. Legolas had his arm resting around her shoulders and Lauren was leaning against his side as he sat above her on the arm of her chair. Lauren had her eyes directed down at the floor, refusing to meet the worried, sympathetic gazes of any of the others. Aragorn quickly summarized the argument that led to her throwing them out of the dream realm, finding her again tonight and their visit to Minas Tirith before ending with their decision to show Lauren around Imladris.

All were silent for several moments following the completion of his tale. None knew what to say.

"What do you intend to do now?" Elrond finally asked, breaking the silence.

Lauren shrugged lightly. "I don't have much choice, do I? Once I wake up, I'll have to go on living my life, though the thought of what I'll be facing fills me with dread." Shaking her head abruptly, Lauren leaned forward in her chair, pulling away from Legolas. "But this was not what I intended for this visit. I don't wish to discuss this any further. Now that your curiosity about me is assuaged, can we move on to more pleasant things?" She turned to Aragorn and Arwen. "You two are able to talk with your father once more. Don't waste the opportunity on my problems. Summon Eldarion and introduce him to his grandfather. Enjoy your time together." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "Life is short. Spend time with those you love while you can."

Aragorn sighed as he watched her once again avoid discussing her problems and her feelings about them. He reached over and placed his hand over hers. "You are among the number of people I love," he told her softly.

She smiled at him and clasped his hand briefly. "Then honor my wishes and turn to more pleasant topics. Please?"

Closing his eyes momentarily, Aragorn acceded to her wishes. "Very well." Withdrawing his hand, he looked over at Arwen. "Should we summon Eldarion? Surely he still sleeps."

Arwen nodded agreement, and they called their son to them.

When Eldarion appeared, he looked around him at the location before turning to his father. "Ada, how did we get to Imladris?"

"We have returned to the dream world, ion-nín. (my son) Do you remember Lauren?"

"Of course," Eldarion said, as if the question was ridiculous. "She showed us all the animals." He looked around to find Lauren and saw her sitting near Legolas. "Suliad."

Lauren smiled at him, and returned his greeting. "Suliad, Eldarion. I think there are some people you might like to see." She gestured behind him, and as he turned around to see, a wide grin crossed his face. "Uncle 'Dan, Uncle 'Ro!" He launched himself toward them, and Elladan crouched down to catch him, sweeping the child up into his arms.

Aragorn glanced over at Elrond to see a shimmer of joyful tears in his eyes as he watched the child with the twins. He gestured for Elladan to bring Eldarion over to their father. "Eldarion, I would like you to meet Lord Elrond, your grandfather."

Eldarion stared at Elrond in amazement before looking hesitantly over at Aragorn. "You said he went over the sea."

"I did," Elrond spoke, drawing Eldarion's attention back to him. "But I was summoned to this realm by your father, just as you were. It is a great pleasure to meet you, Eldarion."

"I am honored to meet you as well." Eldarion inclined his head toward his grandfather and placed his hand over his heart before sweeping it out in a greeting.

Aragorn's eyebrow rose as Eldarion responded in his best court manners. He didn't think Eldarion had paid attention to his tutor in this subject. He noticed the uncertain look in Eldarion's face and sighed. Eldarion obviously did not know how to treat this person, his grandfather. While he understood that Elrond was his mother and father's Ada, he had no experience with grandparents, and did not know how to react.

Elrond gazed at Eldarion for a moment before turning to look sidelong at Aragorn. "He reminds me so much of you at that age, though his manners seem to be much better. Somehow, you never seemed to take to Erestor's attempts to teach you formal manners." The smile that crossed Elrond's face was infectious and Aragorn and the twins laughed lightly.

"I can remember the time when the envoy from Lothlorien came to visit and you decided that you would not wear your formal attire, so you came to the table with no clothing at all," Elladan said laughing. "I do not think I have ever seen Ada speechless like that before in my life."

"That is unfair," Aragorn protested. "I was only three or four at the time. I did not know any better."

Eldarion's grin grew as Elrond picked up the story. "It was all I could do not to laugh as you came walking into the room and took your seat as if nothing was wrong. As host, I had to make apologies and take you back to your room and dress you. Even now, I cannot help but laugh as I picture the look on the messenger's face. He truly did not know what to think."

Aragorn smiled as he saw Eldarion turn to face Elrond more fully from the protection of Elladan's arms. "Do you have more stories of what Ada was like when he was younger?"

Elrond smiled. "I have many stories of your Ada."

Though Aragorn dreaded the thought of what his father would tell Eldarion, he knew full well that this was the quickest way to put Eldarion at ease with Elrond.

Elrond took a seat on a couch, and Elladan took a seat nearby, holding Eldarion on his lap while Elrond launched into another story of Aragorn's youth.

Lauren leaned back in her seat and grinned up at Legolas. "I can have some good ideas at times, can't I? This may be the only time Elrond gets to meet his grandson. I couldn't just let the opportunity pass by with people dwelling on me."

Legolas inclined his head in agreement, though he still thought that her habit of avoiding talking about her feelings was not helping her. He could not watch Eldarion and Elrond without feeling delighted that they had at least this small moment in time to meet. He looked down into Lauren's face when she poked him in the ribs. "Yes, Lauren?"

"Is there anyone you want to summon?" She looked back at Arwen and Aragorn. "You've told me tales of what this place was like at its prime, full of life and song and laughter. Why don't you summon as many people as you want and fill this place with life again? Is there anyone you really want to see?"

A wild hope lit Arwen's eyes as she gazed across at her father. Though he had been telling another tale to Eldarion, he had heard Lauren's question and felt Arwen's eyes on him. As he met her gaze, he knew who she wanted to see. A soft smile crossed his face as he interrupted his tale to call his wife to join them.

The moment Celebrían appeared in front of them, Arwen was moving to launch herself at her mother. "Nana!"

Celebrían was startled by the abrupt change in her environment, but easily gathered her daughter in her arms. "Arwen?" Her arms tightened as she looked over to see her husband and her twin sons sitting off to the side.

Elladan numbly put Eldarion down off of his lap and stood as he saw his mother standing in front of him. Elrohir rose at his side with an equally stunned look on his face, and they moved as one to stand in front of her. Celebrían opened her arms, and the twins both moved into her embrace. Tears traced slowly down Celebrían's face as she held all three children in her arms, something she never thought she would be able to do again. "Oh, my children. How I have missed all of you." Her voice was choked as she clung to them as tightly as she could.

Lauren and Legolas remained in their places, watching the scene in silent amazement. This was completely unexpected for both of them. Aragorn had risen once more to his feet and stared at the beautiful silver-haired elf who had appeared in front of them. He had heard so much about Celebrían, but she had sailed long before he had been born. Eldarion moved over to his side and tugged on his shirt.

"Ada, who is that?" He was unable to take his eyes off the radiant elf who was hugging his mother and uncles so tightly.

"That is your Nana's Nana," Aragorn explained. "Arwen and your uncles have not seen her for centuries."

After a very long moment, Celebrían eased her grip and her children pulled away enough to stare into her face. Celebrían looked over to her husband. "How is this possible, meleth-nín?" (my love)

"We are in a realm of dreams. For this moment, this night, we share the same dream." She opened her mouth to ask for further explanations, but Elrond shook his head gently. "Enjoy your time, I will explain it all later." After this, he stepped back and allowed his wife and children their reunion.

Nodding, she turned back to look into the faces of her children. Her expression softened as she reached up and brushed a tear from Arwen's cheek. "No tears tonight, Arwen. This is a joyful time."

"I know," Arwen replied softly, not taking her eyes off of her mother's face. "But I have missed you so, and feared I would never see you again."

Celebrían closed her eyes and hugged Arwen tightly to her once more. "It is a fear I shared, sell-nín." (my daughter) "But it is a fear that thankfully did not come to pass." She gently held Arwen at arm's length. After searching her face for a moment, she asked a question of her daughter. "Are you happy?"

Arwen smiled. "Yes, I am."

"That is all I need to hear. I wanted so much to tell you how proud I am of you. It takes great courage to follow your heart, no matter the consequences. Though I miss you more than you can know, I agree with your decision. I would have done the same in your place." Celebrían lovingly brushed a strand of Arwen's hair out of her face. The beatific smile on Arwen's face told Celebrían that her words were exactly what Arwen had needed to hear. Elrond had described to her that Arwen's greatest regret had been that she had not had the chance to explain her choice to her mother. She had been so afraid that Celebrían would not understand why she had chosen as she had. Celebrían missed her children every day, and the thought that she would never see her daughter again drove a spike of pain through her, but she needed Arwen to know that she fully supported her decision.

Pulling slightly away from her mother, Arwen held her hand out to Aragorn. Aragorn quickly stepped forward and took her hand, coming to stand before Celebrían. "Nana, I would like you to meet Aragorn, my husband."

Celebrían reached out and took both of Aragorn's hands in hers, smiling as she gazed upon the face of one loved by both her husband and her daughter. "I have heard much of you from my husband. It brings me great joy to finally meet you."

Aragorn bowed over her hands. "I am more honored than I have ever been to meet you, the mother of my brothers and my wife. I heard stories of you from the time I was small. In a way, it was as if you were my mother as well, though we had never met."

"And I would have loved you as my son," Celebrían told him. After hearing so much about him from Elrond, she did feel almost as if he were one of her children. And now, since he had married her daughter, he was indeed her son. Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead. "I know you already hold a special place in the hearts of my husband and children, but I want you to know that you hold part of my heart as well."

"Hannon-le," Aragorn thanked her not only for her kind words, but her acceptance of him and of Arwen's decision.

"Ada?"

Aragorn looked down again as he felt Eldarion step up beside him. Placing his hand on his son's shoulder, he met Celebrían's eyes once more. "This is Eldarion, your grandson."

Joy lit Celebrían's eyes as she knelt down to be on eye level with Eldarion. She reached out and gently touched his face. "I see your mother in your eyes," she told him.

Eldarion seemed awe-struck by the woman in front of him and did not speak. He lowered his eyes and moved back against his father's legs as a bout of shyness overcame him. Arwen moved over and placed her hand on his other shoulder.

Celebrían looked up and saw both Aragorn and Arwen standing by their son. "It brings me great joy to see you so happy." She gently caressed Eldarion's curly hair before standing and moving back a pace so as not to crowd him. Though she wanted nothing more than to gather him into her arms for a hug, she knew that to him, she was a stranger. He would not have appreciated such a gesture. Looking up, she caught the eyes of Elladan and Elrohir, standing back out of the way. She had thought they were giving her a moment with Arwen, but they had been far too silent since she had appeared. They had not said a single word, and that was far from normal for them. The odd expressions on their faces worried her. "Elladan, Elrohir, what troubles you?"

Elladan stepped forward. "Nothing troubles us, Nana. It was merely a great surprise to see you here." He looked over at his twin, then back to his mother. "A great burden is lifted from my heart to see you so happy…whole once again. I never thought to see you this way again, not after…" His voice trailed off as he remembered the melancholy and the grief that had plagued Celebrían after he and Elrohir had rescued her from the orcs. Her physical wounds had healed, but her heart had been clouded thereafter, until she had no recourse but to leave Middle-earth and sail to Valinor. He and Elrohir had always felt a great degree of guilt for not reaching her quickly enough, or for not being with her and preventing her capture and torture in the first place.

"Oh, my sons," Celebrían breathed, seeing the guilt deep in the eyes of both twins. She had healed from her wounds long ago, but apparently, her sons had not fully healed from the guilt that had overwhelmed them at her injuries. She moved forward and took both of them in her arms. Holding them as she had when they were little, she felt both sets of arms come around her and cling tightly. "There was nothing more you could have done than you did. I thanked Ilúvatar every day for my brave and wonderful sons who came to my rescue. I put the horrors of the past behind me long ago. You must do the same. I do not want you thinking of what I was like after my rescue, but what I was like for the many years we lived here in happiness and contentment. Please know that I am well again, and happy, and waiting for the day that you join us once more."

Elladan's arms tightened around her at her words, and a muffled sob escaped Elrohir. Hoping that her sons were finally letting go of the guilt that they had carried in their hearts for centuries, she stood still and held them until their arms loosened around her and they stepped back. She caught their arms to prevent them from going far and reached up to wipe a tear from Elrohir's face. "I love you both so much," she told them. "Though I had to leave, I regretted the fact that I left you all behind. I had hoped that you would be able to find the peace that I sought beyond the shores of Middle-earth." She searched their faces and was pleased to see that though the traces of guilt still lingered in their faces, their expressions were not hard or bitter. From what Elrond had told her, though the twins had faced a very dark time after she left, seeking out and destroying all the orcs they could, they had not completely closed their hearts. They had still been renowned among the residents of Imladris for their pranks, and they had been able to open their hearts to a younger brother when Aragorn came to Elrond's care after his parents were killed.

The question that burned in her mind was when they would make the journey to Valinor and she would be able to hold them in her arms again. But as she looked at Aragorn and Arwen, she knew they would not make the journey while their siblings still lived. And knowing that, she did not ask the question and forcefully remind them that one day, Aragorn and Arwen would perish and seek whatever came for mortals after death. The pain that struck her at the thought of Arwen's death made her catch her breath for a moment, but she would not broach the topic. Arwen had made her decision, and nothing would come from discussing it now but pain.

Elladan saw the pain flash briefly across her face as she looked at his sister and her family. He knew what she must have been thinking. The thought of Arwen's fate was something that pained all of them, but it was something they had all finally accepted. He grasped her hand in his and tried to reassure her. "It is done, Nana. Do not worry for your children. We are all happy with our lives." His reassurance was meant to convey the fact that not only he and Elrohir had healed from their long ago hurts, but that Arwen was truly happy with her choice. Seeing the joy in her face as she looked at Aragorn and Eldarion, Elladan knew that Arwen could never have been happy if she had fled to Valinor as Elrond had urged.

Celebrían heard the undertones in his message and smiled, nodding at him. "Then I am happy as well." She stepped back from her children and glanced around the room, her eyes lighting upon Legolas as he stood off to the side, separate from the others.

"Legolas Thranduillion. It has been long since I have seen you." She had fond memories of the young prince, as he had visited her sons often in their youth. He had been nearly as devious as they when it came to pranks, though, so his visits were never uneventful. She was satisfied that he looked well. "Your father will be pleased to know that you seem well."

Legolas nodded his head at her and spoke eagerly. "You have spoken with my father? How does he fare?"

"He is well, though he misses you greatly. Both of your parents do."

Legolas' gaze sharpened. "You have spoken with my Nana? Is she well? She left so long ago, though she has been often in my thoughts." Hearing news of his mother was more than he had expected from this meeting.

"They are both well, Legolas, have no fear. She was overjoyed when your father arrived. Though she is quite happy in Valinor, she has missed you both greatly."

"As I miss them, but Ada knows my decision, and I hope they understand why I have chosen such."

"Do not worry, young prince. Your parents understand your choice. Knowing you as they do, they fully realize that you could not have chosen otherwise."

"I am glad of that," Legolas said. "But if you would, please carry a message back to them? I would like them to know that I do miss them and think of them both often."

"Of course I will carry your message back. They will be greatly pleased to receive word from you."

As Legolas and Celebrían were speaking, Aragorn glanced over to the chair that Lauren had been sitting in. She was no longer there. Looking around the room, Aragorn found that Lauren was no longer with them. He was concerned over her disappearance. As he felt the conversation was drawing to a close, he moved closer to Legolas.

"Pardon the interruption, but have you seen Lauren, Legolas?"

Legolas bowed slightly to Celebrían before turning to face Aragorn and shook his head. "I do not know where she went, Aragorn. She disappeared shortly after Celebrían appeared."

"Disappeared?" Aragorn asked. "Surely someone would have noticed her leaving the room. Why would she have left?"

"I did not say she walked out of the room, Aragorn. I said she disappeared. One moment she was sitting in the chair, the next she was gone."

"Did she wake?" Aragorn asked in concern. He did not want her to leave without giving them a chance to say goodbye.

"I do not believe so," Legolas said, moving with Aragorn to a less crowded region of the room. "Before she vanished, there was a wistful look on her face. I believe she felt as if she did not belong here."

Aragorn wanted to protest that Lauren belonged here as much as any of them, but thought better of his words. This was his home, it was not Lauren's. "Where do you think she went?" he asked instead.

"She could have gone anywhere with a thought," Legolas said, shrugging. "I honestly do not know where she may now be."

Celebrían had been watching this conversation with confusion plain on her face. "Who is this you speak of?" she finally asked.

Aragorn and Legolas turned back to face her. "Lauren is one of my distant descendants," Aragorn explained. "It is she who created this world we are now in."

Arwen sighed as she saw the confusion still on her mother's face. Aragorn did not do a very good job of explaining who Lauren was. She took her mother aside and endeavored to clear up the matter.

Turning back to Legolas as Arwen took Celebrían aside, Aragorn continued his earlier thought. "I do not think she would go far. We should each take a different direction and search for her. I do not wish for her to be alone at the moment."

Legolas nodded and they turned to walk out of the room, but were stopped as Elrond's voice reached them. "Wait a moment." They turned to face him in question. "I would hear more of this woman. Please tell me what you would not say with her in the room."

With a silent sigh, Aragorn gestured for Elrond to follow them to a quiet corner. They seated themselves and Aragorn and Legolas proceeded to tell Elrond of their fears for Lauren, and the many details they had left out of their previous tale. When they finished, Elrond nodded. "I can see why you do not wish to leave her on her own now. I will join you in your search."

"Do you not wish to spend time with your family?" Aragorn asked, looking over at the others in the room. Celebrían and Arwen were sitting on a couch in the middle of the room, deep in conversation, with Eldarion sitting beside Arwen. The twins were on a couch opposite them, laughing at something Eldarion had apparently just said. His family was complete for the first time in a very long time, and very likely for the last time. Aragorn would not have him give up any of that precious time to look for someone he had just met.

Elrond placed his hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "Do not forget, you are also my family. As is Lauren, though she is a much more distant relation. I can not leave someone in that much pain without making at least an attempt to help."

Aragorn nodded, realizing Elrond's role as a healer was taking precedence. "Then I would be honored to have you join the search. And the sooner we find her, the sooner we can return here and spend time with the others."

With a nod, Elrond gestured for them to precede him out of the room. Once in the hallway, they split up and went in three different directions, looking for their missing visitor from the future.


	19. Heart to Heart

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. As I mentioned in the disclaimers, there were many song lyrics in the first version of this story. While the song lyrics are no longer a part of the story, I do discuss, paraphrase and otherwise use songs as part of the story. This chapter includes a discussion of 'Field of Innocence' by Evanescence.

A/N2: This story can be considered AU in that I assume that Gilraen was killed along with Arathorn, leaving Elrond as Aragorn's only 'parent'.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Chapter Nineteen - Heart to Heart

As he wandered the halls of the home he had lived in for centuries, Elrond's lips curved upward in remembrance. He and his family had had many good times in this place. Though that part of his life was past, he would carry the memories of those times in his heart and mind forever. A soft sound caught his attention, and he turned down a hallway that let out onto a balcony with a wondrous view of the valley. When he reached the doorway, he stopped and simply watched the object of his search. She was sitting on the low wall of the balcony, leaning her back against one of the supporting pillars, with one leg propped up on the wall and the other swinging loose. Her gaze was fastened on the waterfall at one end of the valley, and she was singing softly to herself. Her fingers moved in time to the music that only she could hear accompanying her words. She was singing of having once seen the world through the eyes of a child and having that childish innocence stripped away, how the world seemed a much colder place now than it once was. ('Field of Innocence' by Evanescence)

As Elrond watched her, he was struck by the melancholy sound of her words. They seemed to indicate a world-weariness that he would not have expected in one so young. It worried him.

Stepping out onto the balcony, he interrupted her song. "I have always loved this view as well. Coming out here rarely failed to bring me a sense of peace, no matter what troubles faced me."

She started abruptly, taken by surprise as her solitude was interrupted. Moving to straighten up, she relaxed into her earlier position as Elrond waved her back. "Lord Elrond, I did not expect to see you here."

Elrond crossed the balcony to lean casually against a pillar opposite her so that he faced her as they spoke. "Aragorn noticed your absence and grew concerned."

"He would." She sighed and gazed back out at the waterfall. "He shouldn't have dragged you into this. For whatever time we have here, you should be spending it with your family."

"I am," Elrond said, watching her face closely. Her expression was one of astonishment as she whipped her gaze back to his face. Elrond knew she had not expected him to claim her as kin.

"Family?" she asked softly, gazing into his face. "Hardly that. No matter what Aragorn claims, we are so far apart as to be absolute strangers. Thank you for your acceptance, but we are not family. I am no elf, no daughter of kings as Aragorn claims, but just an overworked computer programmer." She reached up and drew the circlet off of her head, holding it in her hands and gazing at it for a moment. "This place is a nice fantasy, and quite beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it has nothing to do with me." A wistful smile crossed her face as she looked at the silver circlet in her hands, gently tracing the graceful curves with a finger. "Any common family traits would have faded generations ago. As much as I would wish otherwise, there is no remaining bond between me and any of you."

"You are wrong," Elrond spoke the words as a statement of fact. She looked up in curiosity, and he expounded on his statement. Moving closer, he brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. "If all family traits had disappeared, how do you explain your resemblance to Aragorn? Do you not see yourself in the faces of the twins, as I do? When I look at you, I see those I love. I wish to help you as I would any of them. Why do you insist on placing such a distance between us?"

Tears filled her eyes and she looked quickly away from Elrond. "I guess I did do that, didn't I? Put distance between us, I mean?" Swiping the tears quickly from her eyes, she looked back to him. "Call it a habit, I guess. I always seem to do that. I have friends that I trust, but seldom do I ever tell them what is in my heart. I don't know why, but I just can't seem to let people get that close to me. I don't trust easily, I guess."

"Yet you seem to trust Aragorn and Legolas," Elrond pointed out. "Though Aragorn has grown frustrated with the fact that you seem unwilling to discuss your feelings with him."

A slight chuckle escaped her at that. "Yeah, I know it frustrates him. You can let him know that it's nothing personal. I just don't like discussing my feelings with anyone. But yes, I do trust them. How could I not? It would be like not trusting myself."

"What do you mean by that?" Elrond asked in curiosity. He rested back against the railing near her, keeping his attention focused on her face.

She gave him a wry grin. "Don't tell Aragorn this, as he tends to take it rather personally, but I'm still not convinced that this isn't all some elaborate hallucination caused by my head injury."

Elrond's lips quirked upward in a smile. Aragorn had told him how her continued disbelief annoyed him. "He did refer to your thoughts on this matter as extremely stubborn."

"I'm sure he did," she said, remembering the many times he had called her stubborn to her face. "And if this is all real, then I apologize to you, Aragorn, Legolas, and all the others, but I just can't bring myself to believe it. It's been a long time since I believed in fairy tales and happily ever after, you know."

"So if this is an hallucination, why are we all here? What role do we play in your mind?" Elrond was trying to get a feel for her thought processes, to know which way to approach the discussion he felt they needed to have.

She paused a moment and attempted to bring some order to the thoughts that were half-formed in her mind before beginning to slowly speak. "Well, Aragorn was the first one to appear to me. In many ways, he reminds me of my father. Not in looks, really, but I feel safe with Aragorn. He cares for me in the way my father does. He seems to represent security to me, and he appeared when I was unsure what was going on and in need of comfort. When I began to feel more comfortable with things, Legolas appeared. He's gorgeous and everything I would desire in a man, and more. Who wouldn't want Legolas around?" She stopped and looked at Elrond as a snort of laughter escaped him. "OK, please don't repeat that to him either. Assuming this is all real, I'd rather he not be told that part, though I haven't exactly been trying to hide my attraction to him. But in the course of getting to know him, he became a friend, a trusted companion. He and Aragorn have kept me sane, and I am extremely grateful to them both for that."

"If you see Aragorn as a source of comfort, and Legolas as your heart's desire, where does Arwen fit into this? Where do I?" Elrond was highly amused by her comments about Legolas, but he was rather impressed by how deeply she seemed to have analyzed those around her and her own reactions to them.

"Arwen and Aragorn are a reminder that true love does exist," Lauren replied readily. "I used to believe in love, though that was largely burned out of me by betrayal. I know love exists, because I can see it when I look at my parents, but it seems all too rare and fragile. I've given up on the hope that I'll ever have that kind of love…" her voice trailed off and she was silent for a moment. "Though maybe seeing Aragorn and Arwen together here is a way of showing me that I haven't truly given up, but have just been afraid to try again out of the fear that I'll have my heart broken again. I don't know that I could go through that twice."

Elrond's brow furrowed as he heard her talk of being betrayed. That would likely have added to the weariness and hints of bitterness he had heard in her voice. He was sure the betrayal that she mentioned was a large part of her inability to trust others.

She continued with her analysis of those around her in this world. "You seem to be something of an authority figure like a priest or a therapist or something. I can talk to you without fear of being judged. I don't really have that in my life, I guess. There are a lot of people who would be willing to listen, but I just can't bring myself to tell them how much of a mess I really am. For some reason, though, I can talk to you."

Elrond was honored that she felt that way. As a healer, he took pride in being able to listen to those around him and hopefully, to help them find solutions to their troubles. Though Lauren had only met him, he found it interesting that she had pegged him for the role of someone she could talk to. He was curious to see how far she had taken this analysis of those in this dream world. "Can you tell me where Elladan, Elrohir, Eldarion and Celebrían fit into this scheme?"

She smiled at him as she went on. "OK, the twins definitely represent my fun-loving side. I never pulled all the pranks that I've heard they're famous for, but I do have a wicked sense of humor at times. They're here to show me that there is more to me than this sorrow that is threatening to drown me. I think they represent a part of me that is trying to tell me not to give in to the pain. Eldarion represents that childish innocence that I lost so long ago. Sometimes, I do wish I could go back to that time in my life when I believed in magic, unicorns, and happily ever after. I believed then that my parents were super-heroes, that good always triumphed over evil, and bad things would never happen to me." She looked down at the circlet lying in her lap for a long moment, then looked back up at Elrond. "As for your wife, she reminded me of my own mother, and how much she wants me to wake up and reassure her that I'll be OK. I'm sorry for leaving and worrying Aragorn, but I couldn't stay there any longer. It was just too painful to see such happy reunions and know that my own reunion with my parents will be filled with more pain than happiness."

"Do you not think your parents will be happy to see you awake?" Elrond asked in concern. He needed to know what she was thinking about her condition to know how to help her.

"Oh, they'll be ecstatic to see me awake," Lauren said. "But you can't tell me, as a parent, that it doesn't bring you pain to see your children hurting. And as much as I would wish it otherwise, I don't see anything awaiting me upon my awakening but pain and more pain. I can't help but think it might be better if I didn't wake up. I just can't face the thought of that much pain."

"Pain is a part of life that cannot be avoided," Elrond pointed out. He did not like the direction in which this conversation seemed to be going.

"I know that, don't think I haven't come to realize that over the years. But when I went back to visit the hospital, I overheard someone saying that my legs might still need to be amputated. I can't even face the thought of having to live without my legs. And even if I keep them, I may never be able to walk again. Life in a wheelchair is not what I had planned for myself." She hung her head as she heard her own words. "And then I feel incredibly guilty every time I think that. There are so many others out there facing the same thing. People whose lives have been torn apart in the same way, confined to wheelchairs, learning to cope with artificial limbs and dealing with the anger and the questions; Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"There is nothing you could have done to deserve such a thing," Elrond told her. Aragorn had told him that she could still end up losing her legs, but he had mentioned that Lauren was unaware of that fact. He had wanted to keep that knowledge from her, fearing it would make matters worse. It appeared that she had found out from another source. Though her off-hand comment about 'artificial limbs' interested him greatly, he forced himself to focus on her questions. "This is not some form of punishment."

She waved off his words before he could say more. "I know that. I do. It's just that I'm scared, Elrond. I've never had to face anything like this before. I don't know how to handle it." She gazed at Elrond with a pleading look in her eyes. "How do I deal with something like this? Can you tell me?"

Elrond's heart nearly broke at the expression on her face. She was like a child asking her father to make everything better. But in this case, there were no easy answers. He could not take her pain from her, much as he wished he could. It was up to her to find her way through it, though he would do what he could to help. "In my time as a healer, I have seen many through injuries such as your own. I will not lie to you, your recovery will be difficult. You will likely be in a great deal of pain at times. But I believe that you are strong enough to overcome this, with the help of those you love. Do not be afraid to ask for help. There is no shame in asking for aid when it is needed."

A pained look crossed her face. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought. This is going to hurt like hell. I just don't want to think about it right now. It's all just too much. Too much… " Her tone was tired, defeated, and a little bitter. She looked out at the waterfall once again, resting her head back against the pillar behind her.

As she began humming the song that she had been singing earlier, Elrond remembered his earlier thought that she seemed weary, not just from her injuries, but of the world she lived in. It was something he had seen many times in elves as they grew weary of Middle-earth and sailed west. It was not something he had expected to see in a young human. Perhaps there was more to her melancholy than just her injuries, though that would have been more than enough. Anything contributing to her melancholy could inhibit her healing, so Elrond decided to try and determine how deep her despondency went.

"What is it about your world that distresses you so?" Elrond asked, taking a chance that his guess was correct.

Turning her head slightly to meet his gaze, Lauren stopped humming. "What doesn't?" she asked softly. Realizing that that was really no answer, she ran a hand through her hair and tried to form her thoughts. "Sometimes, I listen to music because the lyrics seem to express feelings that I can't put into words myself. The song I was singing as you approached is one of those songs. I just feel sometimes like there is no innocence left in my world. I realize that humanity has been fighting amongst itself from the very beginning, and my time really isn't that different from any other time in that respect, but there just seems to be no way to get away from that reality. There are several forms of instant communication in my world. And we just keep hearing about one disaster after another. A terrorist attack in one place, a natural disaster in another, a murder in the city I live in. Death and pain and loss everywhere I look. I just want it all to stop. But I don't see an end to it anytime soon. I live my everyday life largely untouched by the violence, and I am exceedingly grateful for that, but my heart breaks a little more each time I hear about the horrors that man can inflict on man." The abject pain in her voice succeeded in bringing a tear to Elrond's eye more quickly than her words did.

"It sounds as if your time and mine were not so different after all," Elrond said softly. "Though our form of communication may have been much slower, I can remember feeling much as you did, that all the news reaching me had to do with death, destruction and loss. I saw my land, my world, beginning to fall under the shadow of Sauron, not once, but twice. I fought against him in a long battle in which many of my friends, and my king fell. I saw my wife captured and tortured and was unable to heal her spirit, so she sailed and left the shores of my world behind. I saw my sons let anger fill their hearts as they rode out with the rangers and on their own, happily destroying every orc they saw, knowing that they were destroying their fëar, their spirits as well. I have felt much as you, that it would never end."

By the time he finished speaking, tears filled Lauren's eyes. Here was someone who had suffered through more horrors in his life than Lauren would ever see. Her own problems and even her injuries seemed to pale in comparison. "How did you get through it? How could you keep going, seeing what was happening around you? Why didn't you just take your children and leave Middle-earth with your wife?"

"I still had hope," Elrond said simply. "Faint though it may have been at times, I had hope that Sauron's power would be broken and peace would once again come to Middle-earth. I could not leave until I knew that Sauron was defeated, or that all was lost with no hope for good to flourish. My part in the story was not yet ended. Though my foresight would not tell me the eventual outcome, I knew that my children and I yet had a part to play. I did not know it then, but the day that Aragorn came to us, our destiny was set. Aragorn's destiny was to either defeat Sauron and take up the kingship of Gondor and Arnor, bringing about a time of peace and prosperity for his people, or to fall with the remainder of his people in a hopeless battle against Sauron's forces. As he grew, I began to see this destiny before him. My heart forebode the thought that the child I had raised as a son would perish in such a manner, but I had to place my trust and faith in him to fulfill the destiny that he was meant to fulfill. I had hopes and dreamed that one day, he would become king and rule over a united kingdom. That day did come to pass, and my heart soared to see him crowned." Elrond stood and moved closer, taking both of Lauren's hands in his, and placing the circlet back upon her head. "Your destiny is not fulfilled, Lauren. I know this. There is still much for you to do. Your life is not meant to end here, in this manner. Though I do not know what form your destiny will take, I know you are meant for great things."

Lauren stared at him in something like shock. She had certainly not been expecting that. "Do you see something in my future? Can you tell me what it is?" Her curiosity surged through her, stronger than the confusion in her mind.

Elrond shook his head. "No, the feeling is vague, incomplete, but I know that you have a strength in you that will help you in your recovery. You cannot allow yourself to give up, Lauren." He placed a hand on her shoulder, catching her gaze with his own.

Staring deeply into silver-grey eyes that matched her own, Lauren strove to see the truth in them. What she found was a calm as still and deep as the deepest lake. The calm was a balm to her own turbulent emotions and she could actually feel herself begin to relax. As her emotions settled, she began to feel as if she was able to think more clearly than she had in a long time. Her pain and fear and panic had served to cloud her mind and prevent her from seeing this from a more objective view.

Staring back into her eyes, Elrond could see the change occurring. The pain and much of the sadness was still there, but the fear began to fade, leaving her eyes much clearer. He smiled softly, sensing that she was beginning to tap into the strength he knew she possessed. Her spine straightened and for a moment Elrond saw a hint of the royalty that she was descended from. Then she shifted, and broke the moment. "OK, fine. I promise to do my best and not let myself get too depressed. That's about as much of a promise as I can make right now. My attitude isn't going to change in a matter of moments. My 'disillusionment' has been building for a long time, though I will try to keep it from bringing me down too much." She gave him an impish grin as she continued. "As long as you can tell me that my destiny has nothing to do with politics or a position of responsibility in the government. We don't have royalty in the country I come from, and I've told my friends before that if I ever get the insane idea to go into politics, they should shoot me."

Raising an eyebrow in consternation, Elrond dropped his hand from her shoulder and crossed his arms as he tried to figure out how to respond to that comment.

Seeing the look on his face, she grinned slightly at him. "Sorry. I did say I have an odd sense of humor sometimes. But trust me, I would hate being involved in politics. I'm sure that some of the politicians of my time started out with an idealism that they could make a difference and make things better, but I would bet that not many of them keep that idealism for long."

"Do you not think that a single person can 'make a difference'?" Elrond asked curiously, wondering at the cynicism he heard in her voice.

She paused a moment in thought before replying slowly. "No, I won't say that one person can't make a difference. History is full of people whose passion, courage and compassion were capable of changing the world. But those people are rare and exceptional. I'm certainly not in that category."

"Must someone change the world to matter?" Elrond asked her curiously. "Can a person not make a difference on a more personal level? For instance, my life was changed forever the day I took in a small, orphaned child. He made more difference than any of us ever could have expected."

Lauren smiled at the thought of a young Aragorn. "Yeah, children can do that. But you're right. I'd be more likely, and more comfortable, affecting people on smaller scales, more personal levels. Let's just assume that my destiny isn't as grand as Aragorn's, then, shall we?"

"As you wish," Elrond said with a small smile. Aragorn had been wary of his destiny when he was first told as well. But he truly did not know what Lauren's future held for her. Whether it held good or evil, he could not say. In the short time he had known her, he had grown fond of her though, and hoped only the best for her. "One thing you must remember, though. No matter what your injuries, or what your future may hold, you are alive. From Aragorn's explanations, it seems you almost did not survive. Your healers fought long and hard to save you, and your own strength kept you fighting to live. You have won a great victory and proven yourself to be a survivor. Do not let pain and fear strip you of the joy of that victory and your joy in life." Elrond held her gaze with his for a long moment, trying to instill in her an understanding of how fragile life was and the desire to fight to reclaim her life.

Her eyes never flickered away from his intense gaze, and she stared back into his eyes. After many minutes, a hint of steel entered her eyes and she nodded slowly. "You're right," she allowed. "Life is a gift. I've been extremely self-centered in refusing to acknowledge that. I had no say in entering this world, and it is not up to me to decide when I leave it. No matter what happens next, you can be assured that I will not try to return the gift which has been so graciously given to me."

Elrond nodded in relief. He knew her recovery would not be easy, and she would likely be discouraged many times in the weeks and months ahead, but he felt sure she would not be tempted to take her own life. His forehead creased in concern as she leaned back against the pillar and closed her eyes, in pain or weariness he did not know. Deciding to wait for her to speak rather than push her at the moment, he leaned against the opposite pillar and remained silent.

"I'm just so tired," she said softly, wearily opening her eyes and gazing at Elrond.

"Perhaps you would care to lie down and rest?" Elrond asked her. "Rest is necessary for recovery."

"It sounds nice, but I don't sleep here," Lauren remarked. "My body is in a coma and my mind came here. If I fall asleep here, where would my mind go?"

"Where indeed?" Elrond's voice was distant and his eyes gazed beyond her, as if he were deep in thought.

"Have you thought of something?" Lauren asked, tilting her head in curiosity.

"Possibly." After saying this, Elrond fell silent and just looked intently at Lauren as if trying to see through her.

Elrond did not seem inclined to enlighten her with whatever it was he had thought of, so Lauren changed the subject. "I think I have done my world a disservice," she commented idly. Her comment caught Elrond's attention, and his gaze lessened in intensity as he looked at her face.

"How so?" he asked.

"Well, as much as I complain about it, there really are a lot of good things about my world. We've made a lot of progress in so many fields, technology, medicine and astronomy to name only a few. The human race has accomplished things that would amaze you. Yes, we have our problems, but in many places, we also have an incredible number of freedoms and choices for our lives. We have things like the technology to fly, instant communication around the world, and chocolate." She nodded to herself and smiled. "Chocolate is a very good thing…just ask Legolas."

As if her mention of his name had summoned him, and in this world, Lauren wasn't sure it hadn't, he walked through the doorway and out onto the balcony with them. "Chocolate?"

Lauren laughed at the hopeful look on his face. "Would you like me to conjure up some chocolate for you, Legolas?"

"Oh, would you?" Legolas had such an innocent, expectant look on his face that Lauren couldn't help but smile.

Lauren didn't know if he was being serious or facetious, but thought she could use some chocolate, too. A plate of chocolate truffles appeared on the wall beside her. Lauren twisted around so that both of her legs were hanging over the balcony side of the wall, and she was facing the doorway. Though she didn't make any effort to stand, she picked up the plate and offered it to Legolas, who eagerly reached out and plucked one up before popping it in his mouth. Lauren then offered the plate to Elrond, who gave Legolas and Lauren a bemused look before he gingerly picked up a truffle and took a small nibble. They both watched his reaction expectantly.

After the first taste, Elrond looked at both of them oddly. "That is…interesting," he said carefully.

"You don't like it?" Lauren asked, a little disappointed. Legolas was staring at Elrond as if he were crazy, though he would obviously never say such a thing. "That's OK," she said in response to Elrond's half-shrug. "I know some people who don't like chocolate at home. I've always thought they were insane, but I guess it isn't to everyone's taste." She gave Elrond a wicked grin. "That just leaves more for me." So saying, she picked up a truffle and popped it whole in her mouth.

Elrond stared at her, not sure if she had just accused him of being insane. But it was clear that she and Legolas both greatly enjoyed the confection she had just conjured. It tasted too sweet for Elrond to truly like it.

Once Lauren and Legolas had eaten a few of the candies, Legolas finally spoke again. "Were you here the whole time? Aragorn and I looked all over Imladris for you. It was rather rude of you to disappear like that."

Ducking her head, Lauren avoided making eye contact. "Sorry. I just needed a few minutes for myself, and quite honestly, I thought everyone else could use some family time together without a stranger hanging around."

Legolas moved closer to Lauren and used a finger to tilt her face up to meet his gaze. "You **are** family, Lauren, do not think otherwise. You are Aragorn's family by blood, but you are mine by choice."

Lauren met his gaze at that, and he let her see the truth of his words in his eyes. "Thank you, that means more to me than you can imagine." She was touched by his declaration, and it made her feel good to know that he considered her family. If this was all real, maybe the accident had been worth it to get to meet these amazing people…maybe.

"Would you care to return to the others?" Legolas asked.

"OK." Her voice was hesitant, and she glanced down at her legs.

Elrond realized that except for when she walked into the house, he had only seen her sitting. Studying the lines of pain in her face, he voiced a question he should have asked earlier. "Are you able to walk?"

"Not well, I think," Lauren answered. She looked back at Legolas. "Ever since that moment out on the path, it's been worse." Turning her gaze back to Elrond, she continued. "As long as I don't try to stand and put any weight on my legs, I can ignore it, but I wouldn't trust my ability to walk right now."

Without further prompting, Legolas stepped forward and lifted her into his arms. "Shall we go?"

Draping an arm around Legolas' neck, she gave him a grateful look. "Yes, please." And in a soft whisper, "Thank you."

Knowing that she was thanking him for much more than just carrying her, Legolas nodded his head at her. He carried her through the halls of Imladris, following behind Elrond as he led the way back to the Hall of Fire where the others waited. They met up with Aragorn in the halls.

A worried look crossed Aragorn's face as he saw Legolas carrying Lauren. "Are you well, Lauren?"

Lauren chose not to point out how stupid that question was and instead answered his question seriously. "Well enough, I suppose. As long as I don't try standing up, anyway." Her response didn't seem to assuage his concern, judging by the look on his face. "Don't worry, Aragorn. Things are going to be fine." She glanced over at Elrond, who had stopped when Aragorn approached them. "Your father and I had a nice long talk. I know things aren't going to be easy, but I think I'm ready to face my life again. Elrond helped me see things a little more clearly."

Aragorn gave his father an affectionate look. "Yes, I have noticed that he is quite good at doing that."

Elrond gave his son an acknowledging nod, then turned and led the group into the room. After settling Lauren onto a soft sofa, Legolas sat down beside her. Aragorn moved over to sit near Arwen, who was seated on another sofa with her mother and Eldarion. The twins were seated nearby, and they all appeared to have been having a great time talking and sharing stories before they were interrupted. Elrond sat down between Aragorn and the twins. Arwen introduced Celebrían and Lauren to each other.

After introductions and an exchange of pleasantries, they all settled back in their seats and the twins resumed the story they had been telling their mother about Aragorn's first archery lesson. Aragorn groaned and buried his face in his hands when he realized what story they were telling, while Lauren started grinning as she listened. Apparently, that first lesson hadn't gone so well.

Once the laughter had died down, Elladan turned to face Lauren. "What is your world like? Aragorn told us only what we needed to know about you, but not much about your world."

Lauren was silent for a moment. "I don't even know how to answer that. In many ways, my world has very little in common with this one, but at a fundamental level, I don't think things have really changed that much. But before I tell you anything, I have to ask for a solemn vow from all those still in Middle-earth. You must promise me that you will not use any of the knowledge or re-create any of the technology that I tell you about. The twenty thousand years that lie between us may be your future, but it is my history. I cannot risk you changing anything by using what I say. Time travel is a popular idea in my time, though no one knows if such a thing is truly possible. A common theme of the fiction stories written though, is that one small change made in the past can have catastrophic results in the future. I can't take that chance. So I must have this vow from all of you before I say anything. Do I have it?"

Elladan and Elrohir looked stunned at her seriousness. They had really seen more of her playful side, and seemed surprised that she would ask for such a thing. "You have my vow," Elladan said, knowing that she would want to hear the words.

"And mine," Elrohir added. "We vow not to use anything you may tell us."

Lauren nodded at them, then turned to Eldarion. "I will need yours as well."

Eldarion turned to look at his father. "Ada?"

Aragorn nodded to him. "I gave Lauren this vow shortly after meeting her, as did your mother and Legolas. To hear any of it, you must also make this vow."

Nodding seriously, Eldarion turned back to Lauren. "You also have my vow." He straightened in his seat as he gave his answer, proud to be treated as an adult in this matter.

"Good," Lauren said, relaxing back into her seat. "We can proceed, then."

"Do you not wish such from us?" Elrond asked her.

"No, I don't need it," Lauren said. "As I understand it, Middle-earth and Valinor are two separate places that do not interact. Whatever developments are made in Valinor will not affect the development of Middle-earth. Feel free to use anything the others or I tell you. This vow is bound only to Middle-earth."

Elrond nodded to her as he realized that she had thought the matter through quite thoroughly. He thought it admirable, actually, that with all of the problems she saw in her world, she wanted to avoid making any changes to suit her own purposes. She was showing a rare wisdom in asking for this vow before revealing information about her world.

Once she had given permission, Aragorn and Legolas were free to share all that she had shown them about her time and her world. Since Legolas knew that Eldarion had given his serious vow not to use what he heard, he was free to describe their experiences flying in Lauren's world. The hang-gliding experience was his obvious favorite, and as he described it, he could see a light shining in the eyes of both twins. Legolas was sure that as soon as the twins got to Valinor, they would start working on a way to fly. That story fed into another, and another, and time passed quickly as they all shared in these experiences.

Elrond noticed that Legolas and Aragorn were doing most of the talking, and glanced over at Lauren. She was leaning against Legolas, her head on his shoulder, and her eyes half-closed. Though she was not asleep, she was obviously tired. The idea that had occurred to him earlier reasserted itself. At the end of the current story, he broke into the conversation.

"Lauren, have you discovered how to return to your world?"

Her eyes popped fully open as she realized Elrond was speaking directly to her and sat up straight. "Well, not really. I know my connection to my world is growing stronger, and my hold on this world is slipping, but I don't know how to cross back over completely." Her gaze sharpened. "Why? Do you know how I'm supposed to do this?"

"I have a theory," Elrond said. "Have you been tired in the entire time you have been in this world?"

"No," she said. "That pretty much started tonight."

"And you have not slept since you appeared here?" Elrond studied Lauren's face as he spoke.

"That's right," Lauren confirmed. She thought she could see where he was going with this. "Are you thinking that if I go to sleep here, I'll wake up in my world?"

"It would seem to make sense," Elrond replied.

"So if we had convinced her to sleep days ago, she would have already woken up?" Aragorn asked, frustrated that he had not thought of this himself.

"No, she was not ready to awake," Elrond said. "She has only been tired tonight, which is evidence that she is only now ready to go back to her world." Looking back to Lauren, he asked her. "**Are** you ready to return to your world?"

"Yes, I think I am," Lauren said seriously, nodding slowly. "But I don't think I could just fall asleep so easily. I've never been the type to fall asleep quickly, and it would be a bit too weird for me to try to sleep with so many other people standing around watching me."

A smile crossed Elrond's face. "I believe I can help you with that. We can offer you a private room, and I have something that will help you find sleep."

"One of your famous teas?" Lauren asked with a smile.

"So you've heard of them?" Elrond asked, looking sideways at Aragorn and Legolas, knowing all too well who had told her about the teas that he used on his patients. Lauren just shrugged lightly. Studying her face, Elrond knew that staying here was becoming more of a strain on her. Her face was paler than it had been earlier, and she was obviously in pain. It was time to send her home. "It is time, Lauren."

"I know," she said softly. She looked at Aragorn with a worried expression. "I don't want a large audience, but I don't want to try this alone."

"I will stay with you as long as you like," Aragorn said. He had been with her throughout her time here, and he would not abandon her at the last.

"As will I," Legolas said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Lauren glanced around the room, knowing that it was time to say farewell to all those she had met here. She looked first to Elladan and Elrohir. "I guess it's time for me to go. I'm sorry we didn't have time to get to know each other better. I have a feeling the three of us would have been great friends."

Elladan had an amused expression on his face when he answered. "Are you so sure? Many people do not seem to appreciate our sense of humor."

Chuckling as she remembered some of the stories Aragorn and Legolas had told her, Lauren had to agree with that statement. "I can see how that might be true, but don't forget, I have an odd sense of humor as well. Do you know that doctors have actually found a link between a person's attitude and their physical condition? There's a saying where I come from. 'Laughter is the best medicine.' Laughter can help people heal more quickly. I'm afraid I don't see much to laugh about in my near future, but I bet you would be able to make me laugh easily. That is a gift I would cherish."

Elrohir knelt down in front of her to put them on eye level. "Then it is a gift I would wish to give you. I also think we would be great friends."

Elladan stepped forward to stand behind his twin. "It would be our honor to make you laugh and aid in your recovery."

Lauren was touched by their words, and felt tears come to her eyes. Though she had just met them, she felt as if she had known them for a long time, and she had always hated saying goodbye. To hide her emotions, she twisted around in her seat to look up at Aragorn. "Are you sure I can't take them home with me?" A smile crossed his face and he just shook his head at her, not even making an attempt to keep her from teasing the twins, knowing that it would do no good. Lauren looked back to see the twins roll their eyes at her remark, in perfect unison. That was too much for Lauren, and she started giggling.

"You are impossible," Legolas said, nudging her shoulder.

"What?" she asked innocently. "They said they wanted to make me laugh." Her giggles faded away as she looked at Elladan and Elrohir, who now stood side by side before her. "Sorry for teasing you. Thank you for your willingness to help me, even when I've done nothing but tease you. I want you to know I don't do it to be irritating, but out of fondness. I feel I know you both very well from the stories I've heard from Aragorn and Legolas. I know you both have been through a lot, but I'm glad you managed to keep your sense of humor. That is very important in life, and truly a credit to you both. Your ability to laugh is a gift, never forget that."

Elladan and Elrohir looked at each other for a moment. This young woman was giving them advice on life? The thought was almost laughable, but they knew she was serious, and that she would need to take her own advice in the near future. Elladan read the same response in Elrohir's eyes and looked back to Lauren, speaking for them both. "Laughter is a gift, that is true. Make sure that you have someone in your life capable of making you laugh. If it were in our power, we would gladly travel home with you to help you in your recovery, even if you insisted on teasing us as you have." He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Though if we did, you may find yourself regretting the offer. We do not usually take teasing in stride like this without retaliating. It is only due to your short time here that you are escaping so easily."

Lauren's eyes widened as she heard the mild threat in his voice. "Then maybe I will simply say goodbye and count my blessings for my easy escape?" she said lightly as Elladan straightened up and stepped back beside Elrohir.

Elladan and Elrohir nodded to her with mischievous twinkles in their eyes that Lauren recognized from years of living with an older brother. "Farewell, Lauren," Elladan said, echoed by Elrohir. They stepped back, allowing Celebrían, Eldarion and Arwen to come forward for their good-byes.

With a gentle smile, Celebrían gazed down at Lauren. "Though we have only just met, I feel you will always have a very special place in my heart. You allowed me to visit with my daughter again, and to meet my new son and grandson. That is a chance I would not have had otherwise. I cannot thank you enough for that."

Returning her smile, Lauren replied, "I'm glad something good came out of all this. But I wouldn't cross out the possibility of seeing them all again in the future."

"What do you mean?" Celebrían asked, her heart pounding at the thought of being re-united with her daughter again.

Lauren hesitated, not knowing how much she should say. "Let me just say that I don't think Ilúvatar would keep loved ones separated for all eternity. I truly believe that at the ending of the world, we will all see each other again. I can't say how long that wait will be, beyond the fact that it hasn't happened yet. But I don't believe this parting is truly goodbye, merely 'till we meet again'."

Celebrían gazed down into the face of the woman who was speaking so confidently. Did she know something that the rest of them did not? Was there truly a chance she could see her daughter again, sometime in the distant future? She knew that whether or not it was true, she would hold that hope deep in her heart forever, or until the day she was reunited with Arwen at last. "I hope you are correct," she said at last. "Thank you." With that, she stepped back to join Elladan and Elrohir.

Turning her attention to Eldarion, Lauren gestured for him to come a little closer. "Eldarion, I'm going to have to go back to my world, so we won't see each other again. I'm going to hold you to your vow not to use anything you heard here, or to repeat it to anyone. You can discuss it with your parents, Legolas and your uncles, but unless your father tells you otherwise, you cannot tell anyone else. Will you keep this our secret?" Eldarion nodded somberly. "Good," Lauren grinned at him. "Goodbye then, Eldarion. Have a good life."

"Namárië," Eldarion said, bowing his head slightly in her direction before straightening and hurrying back to his uncles and his new grandmother.

Arwen sat down on the sofa beside Lauren, on the opposite side of where Legolas still sat. "Do you truly think we will all be together again some day?"

"Yes," Lauren said. "I can't explain why I feel this way, but I'm pretty confident about that."

"Thank you for that and for this night," Arwen said sincerely. "I did not think I would ever be able to see Nana again. I cannot tell you what this means to me."

"I'm grateful that there was something I was able to do for you," Lauren said. "Think of it as my way of saying thank you for all that the three of you have done for me since we met. You've kept me sane, given me someone to talk to and kept me distracted from my own troubles. I may even go so far as to say that you've all kept me alive. If I did anything to help you, then maybe I've begun to pay you back for all you did for me. I really am going to miss you all, you know."

Arwen leaned closer and wrapped her arms around Lauren, who returned the embrace. "I shall miss you as well. You do not owe us anything, Lauren. We were glad to help you in any way we could. After all, you are family."

"Thank you," Lauren said as she pulled away from Arwen. "Oh, speaking of family, you might want to spend whatever time you can with yours. I don't know what will happen to this world when I leave it to return to my own. I can think of only two possibilities. One is that the world will fade with me, and everyone will wake up in their own beds. The second is that it will continue to exist as long as a conscious mind is here to keep it going. In that case, as long as you will it to exist, it will." She stopped for a moment and thought about what she just said before shaking her head and moving on. "In that case, it should exist until the last person wakes up and leaves it. I hope, for your sake, that it is the latter, so you can spend more time with your family, but I really don't know."

Hugging her tightly once more, Arwen thanked her again for this chance to see her mother, then released her and stood up. " Namárië, my granddaughter. May the Valar light your path and hold you safely."

"Farewell," Lauren said as Arwen nodded her head and walked over to join her family, wrapping an arm around her mother's waist.

"Are you ready?" Legolas asked Lauren from beside her. When Lauren nodded, Legolas stood up and gently lifted her into his arms. He then followed Aragorn from the room.

"Where are we going?" Lauren asked curiously, looking into the rooms as they passed.

"The room I had as a child," Aragorn commented.

"I will make the tea and join you there," Elrond said from behind Legolas.

Aragorn nodded at him as Elrond turned down another hallway. After a few more rooms passed by, Aragorn pushed open a door and led the way inside.

"This is nice," Lauren commented as Legolas crossed the room to set her gently down on the bed. She immediately curled her legs up underneath her and continued to peruse the room. "It's really spacious and open. I like it." She looked over at where Aragorn and Legolas had taken chairs near a fireplace. "Is all elven architecture like this? It's totally unique. The intricate carvings and all those arched doorways are really cool. I've never seen anything like this anywhere else, and you know I've traveled quite a bit. It must be an elven thing. I wish there was someplace like this in my world. It would make a great sanctuary for people needing to get away from the pressures of life and just relax. I don't think it would be possible for someone not to relax here."

"You certainly seem to be managing it," Aragorn commented with a smirk on his face. He had listened to her rapid-fire chatter with growing amusement.

"Huh?" Lauren asked, confused by Aragorn's comment. It seemed to have come out of nowhere.

"Breathe," Aragorn told her. Her previous commentary on the architecture of Rivendell had been delivered with scarcely a pause for breath.

"Oh. Was I talking too much? I'm sorry, I'm just a little nervous I think." She reached up to run a hand through her hair and encountered the silver circlet. Pulling the circlet from her head with one hand and placing it on the bed, she raked her other hand through her hair.

Elrond walked through the door with a small smile on his face and a tea tray in his hands. He had heard the exchange between Aragorn and Lauren as he approached the room. They had obviously become quite comfortable with each other in their time together. Leaning down, he placed the tray on a table near the bed before turning to face Lauren. "I am pleased that you enjoy Rivendell. I have always found it relaxing as well." He studied her for a moment before continuing. "Would you like me to pour you the tea now?"

Biting her lip in a nervous gesture, she nodded slightly. Elrond poured a cup of the tea from the kettle and handed it to her. She took it carefully from his hands and blew lightly across the surface of the steaming liquid. Taking a sip, she quickly pulled the cup away and gave Elrond a skeptical look.

Aragorn started laughing at the look on her face. "Ada, you should have warned her that it would taste bitter. I do not think she will be inclined to finish the cup."

"I sweetened it with honey," Elrond said. "I do apologize that it was not enough to completely conceal the bitterness of the herbs."

"No, it's not that bad," Lauren said carefully. "It just took me by surprise."

Legolas shook his head. "If you intend to lie, Lauren, you need to school your expression a little better."

Lauren glared briefly in his direction. "Would you like to end up wearing this tea?" she asked tartly.

"No, I do not believe the color would match my clothing," Legolas replied lightly.

Now it was Lauren's turn to shake her head. "And you called me impossible?"

Elrond chuckled at the by-play of the younger beings. They certainly sounded as if they were all old friends. Lauren turned, glanced back at him briefly, then looked down into the cup. Taking a deep breath, she took a larger gulp of the tea. In short order, she had finished the cup, and Elrond gave her a cup of cool, fresh water to help wash away the bitter taste.

"Now there's a good girl," Aragorn said, grinning at her from across the room.

"You want to come a little closer and say that?" Lauren said with a threat clear in her voice.

Aragorn stood up and approached the bed. Lauren looked at him in surprise. She certainly hadn't been expecting him to do that. A pillow suddenly appeared in her hand, but Aragorn held up a hand to stop her from throwing the pillow in his face. "Peace, Lauren. That tea will not take long to take effect. Our time is short, and I do not wish to waste it in arguing." Aragorn drew back the covers on one side of the bed. "You may wish to be lying down so that you do not fall over."

Lauren looked down her body at the long, heavy formal dress she was wearing. She would never sleep in such a thing. With a thought, she was wearing a short sleeve top and a pair of soft, loose pants. "That's more like it," she said as she crawled across the bed to where Aragorn held back the covers for her. Once she had lain down, Aragorn pulled the blanket up over her.

"You know, I haven't had anyone tuck me in since I was a child," Lauren said with an amused smile.

"There is nothing wrong with accepting a gesture such as this when you are older," Aragorn returned. "Many times in my adult life, my father tucked me in. Of course, I was usually wounded at the time." Aragorn shrugged and glanced over to see a wry grin on Elrond's lips.

"Well, there you go," Lauren said. "I certainly fit that category at the moment, don't I? Though, I have to say that I really hate the thought of depending on others for every little thing when I go back. I won't even be able to get up and go get myself a snack, or grab a book off the bookshelf, or even get up and go to the bathroom. That's really going to irritate me, I can tell you that."

"There is no shame in accepting help from others when you are unable to do such things for yourself," Aragorn said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I have been in that position before. It is not fun, you are correct in that, but you will find that those you love will get pleasure out of helping you. Do not fight them, but accept their aid graciously."

Lauren sighed and leaned her head back more firmly against the pillow. "Yeah, but the problem here is that they all have lives of their own. None of them will be able to stay as long as I'm going to need help. Not without causing a major disruption to their lives, anyway. My mom will probably stay as long as I need her, but I don't want to ask that of her." She shook her head to shake away the thought of what was to come. "OK, no borrowing trouble from the future. I just need to concentrate on getting through one day at a time, the rest will take care of itself." Lauren yawned as she began to feel sleepy.

Aragorn looked over at Elrond and Elrond nodded back. The tea would soon have her asleep. Picking up one of her hands, Aragorn pressed it to his heart. "I have come to love you as a daughter and as a friend in our time together. Though I know you do not belong here, I will greatly miss our nightly adventures. I wish you all the best in your life." Leaning forward, Aragorn pressed a kiss to her forehead before sitting back on the side of the bed, keeping her hand in his.

Lauren couldn't help a chuckle as a thought occurred to her.

"Did I say something humorous?" Aragorn asked in confusion. Lauren's sense of humor was such that she sometimes saw humor where he did not.

"No, it wasn't anything you said," she hastened to assure him. "It was just my mind going off in strange directions again. In my world, there is a fairy tale called 'Sleeping Beauty'. In it, a princess is put under a spell that makes her fall asleep. Since it was an enchanted sleep, she could not be awakened by normal means. One day, a hundred years later, a young, handsome prince passes by the castle and enters it. Seeing her lying in her bed, sleeping, he leans down and kisses her. She promptly wakes up, as the kiss broke the spell. I was laughing at the thought that I was about to wake up from a coma, which is kind of an unnatural sleep, and a king kissed me. I wonder if that counts?"

Aragorn couldn't help smiling at her recitation. Her mind truly did go off in some odd directions.

"Of course," she continued, "The prince wasn't related to her, didn't think of her as a daughter, and probably didn't kiss her forehead. Oh drat," she snapped her fingers in mock disappointment. "Now I won't wake up. The details are a little too far off."

With a mischievous smile on his face, Legolas stepped forward, leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Lauren's lips. When he stepped back, Lauren was staring at him in wide-eyed amazement. "Lauren?" Legolas asked. She seemed to be stunned into silence. If he had known that was all it would take, he might have tried it earlier.

"Wow," she said slowly. "I totally did not expect you to do that."

"Will that satisfy your fairy tale?" Legolas asked her lightly, moving to lean against the post at the end of the bed.

"Uh, sure," Lauren still didn't seem to know how to react. "You do meet the criteria a bit better, and I've always thought of you as the Prince Charming type, so yeah, I think that will do nicely." She was quickly regaining her equilibrium, and grinned up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. "Of course, we could try that again, just to be sure."

Legolas and Aragorn both burst out laughing, and Elrond couldn't help but join in. "Lauren!" Aragorn chastised her with his tone of voice, but since he was laughing it took away from the effect he was trying to achieve.

"What?" Lauren asked with a too innocent look on her face, before she gave in and gave Legolas a mirthful grin. "I still can't believe you did that." A wide yawn interrupted her next comment and she relaxed back into the softness of the bed. "I guess we're running out of time. I've always been really bad at good-byes. I can only say thank you for everything you've done to help me, all of you." Her eyes rested briefly on Elrond, Legolas and Aragorn in turn. Elrond inclined his head toward her in a form of acknowledgment and farewell. Lauren continued. "I don't want to think about what this would have been like without you. And I won't say goodbye. We're only parting to meet again, whether in this life or the next, I don't know, but I know we will see each other again." With that, her eyes closed and she snuggled into the covers. "I just hope this works. I want to see my family again. It's time to go back." A smile drifted across her lips as she sang a few lines from a song unfamiliar to the others, about going back to a life, reality and the present time, leaving the fantasy behind. Her voice trailed off as she yawned again.

"Do you have a song for every occasion?" Aragorn asked her curiously. It certainly seemed that much of the music he had heard with her seemed specifically written to her mood or situation.

"Almost," Lauren said around another yawn as she opened tired eyes to look at them again. "Well, I've been tucked in and we've already had story time. If we're going to do this whole childhood bedtime ritual thing, let's do it right. Legolas, would you sing me to sleep? I'd really like the last thing I hear to be your voice."

"I would be honored," Legolas said as he moved closer to take a seat near her on the bed. He thought of an elvish lullaby that he had heard Aragorn sing to Eldarion and began to sing. As the elvish filled the room, Lauren's eyes closed and a smile crossed her face. Recognizing the lullaby, Aragorn and Elrond joined in. As Lauren's breathing evened out, she began to grow more transparent. Legolas stopped singing to whisper, " Namárië, Lauren. I too will miss our time together." Moments later, she faded away.

------------------------------------------------------------

Lauren could feel the sedative kicking in and found herself staring at her hand held in both of Aragorn's. His hands were strong and tanned, and felt warm upon hers. The ring of Barahir stood out and seemed to fill her vision as the world began to lose focus. Aragorn had told her the name and history of the ring, but it had never seemed as fascinating to her before as it did now. Two serpents twined around an oval cut emerald. Her eyes began to grow heavy, so as Legolas began to sing, she gave in to the fatigue and closed her eyes, smiling at the sound of his voice. As her awareness faded, she thought she heard Legolas whisper goodbye, then that too was gone, and she fell into the darkness of sleep.

When awareness began to return, first came the sound of voices. She could not make out what they were saying, but the gentle rise and fall of voices in conversation lulled her back to sleep before she had even opened her eyes. The next time consciousness came slowly back to her, she heard the voices again, and began to try to make out what they were saying. Her mind was still too muddled for her to understand the words, so she just lay there for a long time, listening without comprehension to the conversation flowing around her.

Sensation slowly returned, and she felt a hand warm upon her own. With a great deal of effort, she forced her eyes to slit open, ever so slightly. The light was a shock to her, and she closed them again, barely allowing the shape of the room to register in her mind.

"Lauren? Are you awake?"

A voice that she knew she should know called her name. It took too much thought to try to figure out who it was just by the voice, so she cracked her eyes open once more. The first thing she saw was a pair of strong tanned hands holding her right hand. A glint of green on one finger encouraged her to open her eyes more fully and focus on that flash of green and silver. As it came into focus, she saw two entwined serpents surrounding an emerald. "Bara…" Her voice was hoarse and raspy, as if it had not been used in some time. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Barahir?" Though even this small effort was exhausting, she let her eyes drift up to gaze at the face of the man sitting beside her bed. Her vision was obviously still being affected, because his face was nothing but a blur. "Aragorn?"

"Lauren?" The voice sounded very concerned. "Do you know who I am?"

She stared toward the man for a long time as she waited for either her vision to clear or her mind to catch up to whatever was going on here. After a tense silence of several minutes, she was able to focus enough to see that the figure had brown hair and green eyes, not the darker hair and eye color that matched her own. That face was dear to her and as familiar to her as her own. "Jeff."

The worried look melted away as he heard his name. "Yeah, it's Jeff. Welcome back, squirt."

Lauren felt as if her mind was still lagging behind. "Weren't you in Iraq?" The words were rough, and Jeff winced along with her as he knew how tender and sore her throat would be. They had only taken her off the ventilator a couple of days ago. He quickly reached over and grabbed a cup off a nearby stand, then held out a spoon with some ice chips on it. Lauren accepted the ice chips and let them melt in her mouth as Jeff answered her question.

"The Army does have such a thing as compassionate leave, you know. When I told them that my little sister was in a coma after a car accident, they let me come home. Of course, it didn't hurt that General Hammond was the one in charge of leave. He sends his regards, and best wishes, by the way."

Lauren nodded slightly. It felt as if her mind was beginning to wake up a little. General 'Uncle John' Hammond was a friend of their father's from ages back and had known her since her birth. If it had been possible, Lauren was sure he would have been here at her side as well. Come to think of it…she looked around and saw that they were the only two people in the room. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"They went down to the cafeteria for dinner," Jeff answered. "We weren't expecting you to wake up right now, or they would have been here. They should be back soon." He studied the face of his little sister. "I am so happy to see your eyes open again. And you don't know how relieved I was when you recognized me. You scared me when you didn't seem to know who I was."

"Sorry," Lauren mumbled, feeling sleep creep back over her. "My eyes weren't working right. You were blurry."

"What were you saying?" Jeff asked curiously. He had certainly never heard of the two words she had uttered.

"Long story. Tell you later." Lauren found herself unable to speak in full sentences, as it would take too much effort. "Nice ring." She couldn't help remarking on the ring he wore. It was Barahir, she would bet money on it, but she knew she had never seen him with it before. The two words were all she was able to get out to express her curiosity.

"Huh?" Jeff asked as he looked down at his hands. "Oh, that ring. Yeah, it's apparently an old family heirloom, passed down from eldest son to eldest son, that type of thing. Dad gave it to me on my wedding day, telling me that I would one day pass it on to my first son on his wedding day. As valuable as this thing has to be, I don't usually wear it, but I took it to Iraq with me, keeping it hidden on a chain. When I looked at it, I could remember my family, and it brought me some peace. It's been my good luck charm, and I thought that you could use some good luck, so I brought it here with me." He slid the ring off his finger and withdrew the chain that he usually kept the ring on from his pocket. After placing the ring on the chain, he placed it in her hand. "Why don't you hold on to it for a little while? Maybe it will bring you some good luck, too." He noticed her eyes were drooping, and reached over, tenderly brushing a strand of hair off of her face. "You look really tired. Go back to sleep for a little while. I'll be here when you wake up again."

She looked at her older brother. "Really glad you're here, Jeff." Her words were soft, but understandable, and her eyes drifted closed again as sleep came to claim her.

"So am I," Jeff said softly as he watched his little sister sleep. He said a prayer of thanks that she had awoken and brushed a tear out of his eye. "Things are going to be OK, Lauren. Now that you've woken up, things will be fine." Sitting back in his chair, he kept hold of Lauren's hand, staring at the ring he had placed in her hand. He wasn't quite sure why he had loaned it to her, he hadn't planned to do it, but it just felt like it was right for her to have it for awhile. Making himself more comfortable, he settled in for another wait. He wasn't going anywhere.

--------------------------------------------------------

Aragorn, Legolas, and Elrond sat in silence for a time, staring at the place Lauren had been a moment before. "It seems that this world did not fade with her," Aragorn said. He looked up at his father. "I am glad of that. I would like to spend more time with you before we must wake." Looking back at the bed, he gave voice to what was in his heart. "I only wish we could know that she made it back safely, that she was able to recover from her injuries and move on with her life. I do not like not knowing. I almost wish that I could have traveled back with her to care for her, just for a time."

Legolas stared at him for a moment before speaking. "I feel the same way, but for me, this may not be an idle wish. If the Valar allow it, I will travel to her world and assure myself that she is well."

"You would do this?" Aragorn asked, amazed. They had joked about it earlier, but Legolas was perfectly serious. At Legolas' nod, Aragorn sighed. "I do not know how to ask such a thing, but my heart would be more at peace if I knew you were there to look after her."

"How would you find her?" Elrond asked. From their conversation, Elrond knew that the world Lauren lived in was very large and filled with many people. Finding one person among so many would not be easy.

"When we were visiting her house, I saw a letter lying on the table, and Lauren explained to me how their addressing system worked. I remember what her address was, and how to use it to find her. Lauren also showed us the hospital she is now in. If I am allowed to visit her world, I should be able to find her rather easily."

Elrond nodded as his question was answered. "Since there is nothing that can be done to help her now, perhaps we should go join the others?" Elrond was anxious to spend time with Arwen and Eldarion, and Aragorn as well.

"Of course, Ada," Aragorn said as they all stood and walked out of the room. They all spent several hours more in each other's company, telling tales and enjoying their 'stolen' time before they began to wake up.

Faramir was not happy when they finally woke, after sleeping the entire day and waking only in the early evening, but he understood why they had stayed in that world as long as they did. Since they had not truly slept while in the dream world, they still fell asleep easily that night, and for the first time since meeting Lauren, Aragorn slept a deep, dreamless sleep. That fact saddened him.


	20. Epilogue Moving on

A/N: Disclaimers in first part of story. Basically, I don't own anyone but Lauren and other original characters. This is the final chapter of this story, and I thank all those readers who stayed with me for the entire story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Hannon le, mellyn-nin!

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Epilogue - Moving on

Aragorn stood in the doorway of his sleeping chamber and watched Arwen sleep. It was a sight that put a smile on his weary face. His late meetings had kept him from joining her at a decent time. But the treaty was signed, so it had been a good day, all in all. For now, the peace of his land would hold. He moved into the room as silently as he was able and changed into his sleeping clothes before slipping into the bed beside her. As he glanced over to her, he saw the sparkle of her open eyes.

"The meeting ran long. Is all well?" Arwen moved closer to her husband as he wrapped an arm around her.

"It is," Aragorn replied. "The treaty is signed and all is indeed well. Eldarion has shown a great skill for dealing with stubborn ambassadors and delegates. He is growing into a fine man, and will be a great king one day." He smoothed her dark hair back from her face.

"And the children?" Arwen asked with a smile, knowing that he never came to bed without stopping to check that their daughters were well.

"They are fine, sleeping soundly," Aragorn replied.

"As we should be," Arwen retorted with a quick smile. She kissed him gently, then laid back in the curve of his arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

Aragorn sighed as he settled into the softness of the bed. Kissing the top of Arwen's head, he laid his own back on the pillow and closed his eyes. "I do not think it will take long tonight. Go back to sleep, love." 

Arwen closed her eyes, and within moments, both of them were sleeping as soundly as their children.

----------

Aragorn looked around as he found himself in a bright, secluded glade in the woods. A sparkling pond stretched out before him, the blue waters reflecting the sunlight in all directions. There was a small waterfall at one end feeding into the pond, and a small stream at the opposite end trailing away. Across the clearing, there was a cluster of rocks at the water's edge. As he watched, a young woman climbed to the top of the rocks. She was wearing very little, only a 'swimsuit' as Lauren had called it. With a flash of astonishment, Aragorn realized that it was Lauren! He had not expected to see her again. She had disappeared from the dream world over fifteen years ago. While he had often thought of her and wondered what her life had held for her, he had never thought he would have answers to his many questions.

He watched as she walked to the edge of the rocks, raised her arms slowly up above her head, then bent her knees slightly and launched herself upward and out over the water before executing a perfect dive into the cool water. After a moment, she surfaced with a splash, brushing the wet hair out of her face with her hands while treading water. Aragorn moved back into the shadows of the trees so that he could observe her for a time without being seen. In the water, she moved with as much grace as she had ever shown. He was relieved more than he would admit to see her able to climb the rocks and dive as she had just done. But then, this was in dreams, and perhaps she was not quite so well in reality. Without revealing his presence and asking her though, he did not know how to find that out.

After a few more minutes of swimming in the crystalline depths of the pond, she began to wade to shore. Aragorn's eyes narrowed as he studied her movements. Though it was barely noticeable, he could detect a faint limp as she walked over to where she had left a towel near the water's edge. She quickly toweled off the excess water, then spread the towel back out on the ground. As she carefully sat down, Aragorn saw his first real sign that she was not truly healed yet. It did not seem to be an easy task for her to gracefully lower herself to the ground, but she did it nonetheless, and lay back on her towel, placing her sunglasses on her face and closing her eyes as she began to sun herself in the quiet glade. She began singing softly to herself as she relaxed in the sun. It was a gentle love song, and spoke of new beginnings and a reason to live.

A smile graced Aragorn's face as he listened to her singing. She sounded like she was in a very good mood, if her music was an indication. As he watched her, he remembered their first meeting. Though the location was different, this seemed very familiar. He stepped out from behind the trees and made his way silently over to her. As he approached, he studied the scars he could now see crisscrossing their way up and down the length of her legs. From the number of scars showing, he thought it was quite miraculous that she was able to walk at all, much less with barely a noticeable limp. He moved to stand between her and the sun, casting his shadow over her.

Feeling the warmth of the sun fade, Lauren peeked through half open eyes. 'Clouds shouldn't be appearing in my dream,' she thought. Her eyes popped open wide as she saw the figure standing in front of her. "Aragorn! What are you doing here? Talk about déjà vu." The last line was muttered under her breath as she started trying to scramble to her feet to greet him.

Aragorn waved for her to stay seated and lowered himself to the ground to sit beside her. She launched herself into his arms for an enthusiastic hug. He couldn't help smiling as he returned her embrace. After a long moment, Aragorn held her at arm's length. "You have not changed at all."

"You have," Lauren commented as she reached up and fingered a strand of his hair. "When did you go so gray?" She sat back and curled her legs up beneath her as she faced Aragorn. Noticing that she still had her sunglasses on, she pushed them up onto her head and studied Aragorn more closely. He did look older.

"That happens with the passage of time," Aragorn said wryly. "How did you manage to escape such a thing?" From her earlier comments, Aragorn did not think that her family still had the longevity of the descendants of Númenor. If that had been the case, it would not seem at all odd for one as young as Lauren to not seem to age over a period of fifteen years. But since he was sure that Lauren's family lived only as long as any other human of her time, he found this highly curious.

"Passage of time?" Lauren asked in some confusion. "It's only been, what, a year and a half or so since the accident? Surely you didn't age that much in that period of time."

"It has been fifteen years since I last saw you," Aragorn replied, startled at her response.

"Fifteen years? Wow." She paused in thought for a moment. "I guess there's nothing that says we had to reconnect after the same amount of time. After all, thousands of years lie between us. What's a decade compared to that? Though I have to say that I'm certainly glad we met up fifteen years **after** we met last time. Can you imagine what might have happened if we had met up again fifteen years before we met the first time? I think I'd have had a really hard time explaining who I was. But then, we couldn't really have done that, could we? Because then you would have recognized me when we met up the last time. Since that didn't happen, I guess we couldn't have done that. Oh, this is getting confusing." She stopped speaking and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes. "OK, let's avoid talking about time travel and possible paradoxes. The topic is giving me a headache."

Aragorn had to chuckle at her verbal antics. "You truly have not changed at all."

She gave him a sheepish grin. "I guess not. Sorry about that." Looking down, she realized she was still wearing a swimsuit. "I suppose you want me to change into something that covers a little more skin?" With a thought, she changed into a long skirt that reached down nearly to her ankles and a light, V-necked top.

Aragorn stared at the item of jewelry that had appeared around her neck when she changed clothes. On a silver chain hung a very familiar ring. "Is that the ring of Barahir?"

Giving him a bright smile, she reached up and fingered the ring. "Yeah, actually. It was passed down from father to eldest son in an unbroken line for thousands of years. No one in my family has any idea of how old it is, well, I told Jeff, but I'm still not sure he believes me. When I woke up in the hospital, Jeff was there and he was wearing the ring. He told me that my dad had given it to him on his wedding day and that Jeff would carry on the tradition some day. I'm only holding it for awhile. He loaned it to me as a reminder and a source of strength. When he gave it to me, he had no idea just what it would be a reminder of. This ring really has been a source of strength, because every time I look at it, I remember you, Arwen and all the others."

"Then I am very glad that he gave you the ring, for whatever length of time," Aragorn replied. "I suppose I cannot argue with tradition, as it was passed down to me from my father as well, but I would have been honored if you were given the ring to keep. I cannot think of anyone else that I would prefer to have it." Aragorn thought through the implications of her brother having the ring, glancing briefly at the twin of the ring on his finger. "So you are descended from Eldarion after all?"

"It would seem so," Lauren replied. "How is he doing? I guess if fifteen years have passed, he's grown up and isn't a child anymore."

"He is grown," Aragorn agreed, "and doing quite well. Only last night he sat in on a treaty negotiation with a contentious neighbor and proved himself to be quite the diplomat. Largely due to him, the treaty has been signed and the peace will hold."

"Wow," Lauren said, impressed. "Somehow, I just can't picture him as anything but that adorable seven year old."

"He almost did not grow up much past the boy you knew," Aragorn said soberly.

"What do you mean?" Lauren's tone of voice was worried. "What happened?"

"Eldarion has always loved climbing trees." Aragorn started the explanation. "Nearly a year after we met, he fell from a high tree and landed on his back. I watched it happen, unable to do anything to stop his fall. When I reached him, I discovered that he was not breathing, and the shock of the fall had stopped his heart." Aragorn nodded at Lauren's gasp of horror. He would never forget the panic that had clutched at his heart and mind as he made that horrible discovery. "Before I even had time to think about it, I had started the method you call CPR. After several moments, his heart began and he started breathing on his own again." Aragorn bowed his head briefly and looked back into Lauren's eyes. "I cannot thank you enough. If you had not shown me that method, I do not know if he would have survived."

Lauren's face drained of color. "Oh…my…God."

"Lauren?" Aragorn asked in concern, reaching for her arm.

"They say that God works in mysterious ways, but this was more convoluted than I would ever have thought." Her eyes were fixed on his face, and her voice soft.

"What do you mean?" Aragorn was thoroughly confused by her words.

"My coma," Lauren started, speaking urgently, "meeting you, showing you CPR, then you using it to save Eldarion, who I just happen to be descended from. Aragorn, you've just told me that my coma and meeting you enabled you to save Eldarion and preserve the entire line of his descendants. If I hadn't had that accident and had never met you, you may not have been able to save Eldarion, and who knows how many people in the intervening millennia would never have been born. **_I_** would never have been born, and just think what a temporal paradox that would have created! What this means is that I was always destined to get into that accident and to show you how to do CPR when we met." Lauren brushed a shaky hand across her face. "Wow, I think I need to sit down."

"You are sitting down," Aragorn pointed out, feeling a bit overwhelmed as well. It seemed now that their meeting had not been chance, but had been destined to happen. As he well knew, finding out your place in such a vast plan set in place long before your birth could be enough to shake the foundations of a person's belief system. "How are you feeling?"

She shook her head in bewilderment. "I don't know. Awed, confused, humbled, I can't even really put words to it."

"Is it not a relief to know that your accident had a purpose?" Aragorn asked carefully.

"Oh, I already knew that. I had accepted that quite some time ago, but I had thought the purpose was to save my brother's life, not our entire family line." She ran her hands back through her hair in that familiar gesture that Aragorn recognized as nervous habit.

"Your brother?" Aragorn questioned, sensing that there was a story here of which he was unaware.

"Jeff came home from the war-zone to be by my side while I was in the coma. While he was visiting me, his men were ambushed, and several died. If he had been with them, he would surely have been killed. You don't know the anguish I saw in his eyes when he told me his friends had died, but there was something else as well…gratitude and a small amount of awe. He knew as well as I did that if I hadn't been in that accident, he would have had no reason to come home and he would have been killed." She looked down at her hands for a moment in silence before continuing. "We had a long talk about that one day as I lay in the hospital, and I told him that if my injuries bought his life, it was a price I paid gladly. It was one of the few times I've ever seen him cry." Tears misted her own eyes, and she took a deep breath, blinking them away. "He's been calling me his good luck charm ever since, but he was totally overprotective of me while he was home. Even though he had absolutely nothing to do with the accident, I think he felt somewhat responsible, as if he had to repay some debt to me." She shook her head at the thought.

"Is it not possible that he simply loves you and realized how close he had come to losing you?" Aragorn asked, having had much experience with overprotective older brothers.

"Well, yeah, I know that was a large part of it. But after a few days of his hovering, I was nearly ready to strangle him." The wry grin on her face made Aragorn start laughing. Oh yes, he knew that feeling well.

The smile slipped from her face as a sigh escaped her. "He had to go back to Iraq not long after I woke up. I wish he could have stayed longer, but they felt he was needed there. I pray for his safety every day. I gladly paid the price to save his life once, but I don't think I could go through it twice, you know?" A rueful look came over her face as Aragorn nodded in understanding. "Though since the accident apparently served a larger purpose than saving one life, perhaps I wouldn't be expected to do anything like it again. It's kind of a relief, actually." She leaned back on her elbows, stretching her legs out before her, and looked up at Aragorn.

"What is?" Aragorn asked curiously.

"The idea that I've fulfilled my destiny already. Your father told me that he sensed I had a great destiny to fulfill. There's surely nothing greater that I can do than to ensure the survival of an untold number of people. So now that that's done, I can just go on living my life. That is a huge weight off of my shoulders. I've affected the entire history of the world without even being aware of it." She gave him a grin as she lay back on the ground and placed her hands underneath her head. "I'd say that's enough for one lifetime, don't you think?"

Aragorn made a noncommittal sound in response. He was unsure if she truly had already fulfilled her destiny, but he knew she must feel a great sense of relief from thinking there were no more expectations to live up to, and let the matter drop. Glancing down at the part of her legs that showed below the hem of her skirt, he again saw the network of scars on her legs. "How have you been doing, Lauren? You seem to be walking remarkably well."

"It didn't come easy," she said soberly, sitting up once again and tucking her crossed legs out of sight under her skirt as if hiding her scars had become an ingrained habit. "I almost lost my left leg. An infection set in, and they had a really hard time clearing it up. I've had several different surgeries to repair the damage, spent months confined either to bed or a wheelchair, and I'm still going through physical therapy. I had to relearn how to walk after my muscles atrophied from disuse. I have to admit that I've had some really bad days in the past year or so, but I'm glad to say that they're behind me. The doctors were pretty surprised at how well my recovery is going. But I have to say that I've had a lot of help in my recovery." A smile softened her face as she thought about the people in her life that had helped her more than she could have ever hoped.

Despite her matter-of-fact tone, Aragorn's breath caught as he imagined all the pain that she had gone through in those first months after her accident. What she told him was bad enough, but what she didn't say hinted at depths of pain that would have daunted the strongest of men. He was glad to hear that the worst days were behind her, but he found himself wishing anew that he could have been here to help her. The smile that crossed her face as she mentioned those who helped in her recovery made Aragorn wonder. That smile belonged on a woman in love. "Who is it that brings such a smile to your face?" Aragorn asked her.

Her eyes glanced briefly away before looking back to hold his gaze. "Some very special people. There is one in particular though." She held her left hand out toward him, and Aragorn saw a gold and diamond ring on her finger. "I'm engaged to be married," she told him with a mixture of shyness and pride.

Aragorn's eyebrows rose in amazement. This from a woman who had given up on finding love? A wide smile split his face. "I give you my congratulations, then. Who is this incredibly lucky man and is he worthy of you? This seems rather sudden to me."

"I've known him for some time, Aragorn. He is no stranger. And…oh, Legolas!" She abruptly sat up straight from her more relaxed posture.

"Legolas?" Aragorn asked in confusion. "You are engaged to Legolas?"

She had been gazing around them as if looking for someone, but Aragorn's question brought her gaze back to him very suddenly. "What? Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm not engaged to Legolas. I'm engaged to Mark."

"Who is Mark?" Aragorn asked, feeling that the conversation had just passed him by.

"My fiancé," Lauren answered matter-of-factly.

"Lauren." Aragorn growled her name, getting frustrated that the conversation seemed to be going in circles. "If Mark is the man you will marry, why did you mention Legolas?"

"Oh, I just thought he should be here with us, that's all."

Aragorn would have sworn that the innocent look on her face was real and that she hadn't just tried to confuse him by talking around the subject.

"Should I summon him?" Aragorn asked her after taking a brief calming breath.

"No, let me," Lauren responded with a smile. "Could you help me up first?" she asked, holding her hand out in the air to be helped to her feet.

Having no idea why she wanted to be standing, and deciding not to question her about it as it would likely lead to more frustration than it was worth, Aragorn stood to his feet and leaned down to offer Lauren his hand. She grasped it firmly and pulled herself to her feet with very little help from him.

"OK, thanks," she said, moving to stand a little distance away from him. "Legolas!" she called in a loud voice. Aragorn was uncertain why she felt she had to shout, but maybe it was easier for him to call Legolas than it was for her and she wanted to make sure he would hear her. Shrugging, Aragorn leaned back against a nearby tree and waited for his friend to appear. He would enjoy spending some time with Legolas, actually, as it had been a couple of years since they had last seen each other. Legolas was busy with his duties in Ithilien and Aragorn kept very busy with his duties in Minas Tirith.

"That was highly unnecessary," a voice complained as Legolas appeared, rubbing his ears. "There was no need to shout."

"Sorry," Lauren replied. "I didn't know what I needed to do to get you here. I've never tried to summon you into my dreams before."

"No, you have only stumbled into my dreams," Legolas said with a tone of long complaint.

Lauren rolled her eyes at him. "I said I was sorry about that, didn't I? Besides, I haven't done that for months. Not since I learned how to control my dreams a little better."

Legolas inclined his head toward her in acknowledgment of that fact. "That is true. Was there a specific reason that you decided to summon me for the first time tonight?"

"I had some unexpected company," Lauren explained, tilting her chin to indicate something behind Legolas.

"Company?" Legolas asked in curiosity. He looked around until his eyes fell on Aragorn, standing near a tree just behind his current position.

Aragorn could only stare as Legolas appeared. The Legolas in front of him was a Legolas that Aragorn had never seen. At first, he appeared to be any other human. He still had long blonde hair, worn loose down his back, but he was dressed in a pair of loose fitting pants of some kind and a short sleeved shirt of a thin cotton material. He did not have his usual luminescence, and his ears were rounded, not pointed. Aragorn could not make sense of this, and as his mind caught up with the conversation, he realized that Lauren and Legolas had been in contact much more recently than had he and Lauren. He stepped away from the tree as Lauren told Legolas she had brought him here to visit with company. When Legolas' eyes found him, Aragorn froze and stood perfectly still, staring into a pair of blue eyes that registered a great deal of shock at seeing him.

It was in that moment that Aragorn realized the Legolas standing in front of him was not the Legolas currently residing in Ithilien. This was the Legolas of Lauren's time. A million thoughts raced through his head as Legolas simply stared at him. How would Legolas react to seeing a friend he had buried thousands of years ago? Would Aragorn's presence be greeted with joy or would he bring up painful memories of the past? They stood for a long moment, each watching the other intently until Legolas broke the silence.

"Aragorn?" Legolas whispered the question as if unsure whether he could believe his eyes. "Is it really you?"

"Aye, mellon-nin, it is I," Aragorn said softly, taking a step toward Legolas before stopping, unsure of his reception.

Legolas just gaped at him for several long moments. He had never expected to see Aragorn again, and to be confronted with him so suddenly like this…he wasn't even sure what he was feeling, other than shock.

Aragorn watched a myriad of emotions chase each other across Legolas' face. Astonishment and shock were followed by sorrow, an echo of a vast remembered pain, and Aragorn drew in a sharp breath as he saw the depth of that grief in Legolas' eyes. He had never wanted to cause Legolas pain, and he felt an answering pain in his own heart. But that flash of grief was followed swiftly by a wild hope and then happiness, an unbridled joy that brought an answering grin to Aragorn's face. With that smile, Legolas launched himself across the distance separating them to pull Aragorn into a tight embrace. Aragorn clung tightly to him in return, knowing how he would feel if he were given the chance to once again see a friend lost to death long ago. When Legolas finally released him, he held Aragorn at arm's length, studying his face and drinking in every detail as a man dying of thirst would drink a flagon of water.

"I am truly here," Aragorn felt as though he had to reassure Legolas that he was not simply a vision or hallucination.

"Yes, you really are," Legolas said with wonder in his voice. "But how are you here?"

Aragorn shrugged. "Ask Lauren. I simply appeared here and saw her swimming in the pond."

Legolas looked back over his shoulder as if he had forgotten that Lauren was there. He raised an eyebrow in question.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Lauren replied. "I'm not in a coma, and that was the only time we were ever able to contact each other. I wasn't trying to summon Aragorn, so I really don't know how he got here." She gave them both a wide grin. "I'm thrilled to see him, though, no matter how he came to join us, and I can tell that you are as well, Legolas." Lauren had to laugh at the look Legolas gave her. She interpreted his raised eyebrow as, 'yes, any idiot can see that'. "OK, you're right, it was a stupid comment."

Aragorn looked back and forth between them, sensing an ease that spoke of a long-time friendship. He studied Legolas for a moment before asking a question he had wanted to ask from the first moment that he saw him. "How do you come to look so human, my friend?"

"He's a chameleon," Lauren put in with an impish grin.

Legolas took pity on Aragorn's confused expression. "It is a talent I have learned in the intervening years. I am able to influence the way people see me. Lauren's world is not ready to see an elf, and to avoid trouble, I found it necessary to hide my true appearance."

Aragorn nodded in understanding of the reasons behind the disguise, but he was still not sure exactly how Legolas had made himself appear human. Legolas saw this and decided to demonstrate. Standing back from both Lauren and Aragorn, Legolas closed his eyes and concentrated on shifting the aura he projected.

Watching as a faint ripple stirred the air around Legolas, Aragorn found himself quite fascinated as he saw the human disappear and an elf take shape before him. Even studying Legolas as closely as he was, Aragorn would have had a hard time describing exactly what about Legolas had changed. Well, the ears were once again pointed, his hair pulled back in braids, and his glow had returned, but Aragorn didn't think simply the absence of those elements would have made Legolas appear quite so human. There was little change in his face, but now Aragorn saw an elven face, where earlier he had seen a human one. He was not sure quite what made the difference, but there was a definite difference. When Legolas opened his eyes, Aragorn was stunned at what he saw in those endless depths. For the first time, he truly realized that he was looking at an elf that had lived for many ages of man. The sheer presence of the elf in front of him took his breath away. There was wisdom, serenity, and peace in those eyes. The weight of the ages had changed him almost beyond recognition. Aragorn was reminded of the presence that Galadriel had always possessed. Suddenly, Aragorn did not doubt that Legolas had gained many abilities over the years, including the ability to make himself appear human. He found himself wondering if this Legolas would treat him as the Legolas he knew once had, or if this Legolas was someone entirely different.

Aragorn's trepidation disappeared as Lauren broke the moment by reaching out and gently touching one of Legolas' braids. "Oh, you're just so pretty when you drop the disguise," she cooed playfully.

Legolas swatted her hand gently away, rolling his eyes. "Cut it out, Lauren."

Lauren turned to Aragorn with an impish grin. "He's pretty impressive as a human; all my female friends have been trying to catch his eye ever since they met him, but if they saw him as he is now, they'd mob him. He wouldn't escape their clutches alive."

"Hence the need for some protective camouflage," Legolas said dryly.

Aragorn looked back and forth between them. "So you are truly in Lauren's world?"

"Yes, I have been here for over a year. I promised you that I would come to help her in her recovery and I held to that promise." Legolas gazed at him seriously, and Aragorn could see the friend he knew in those clear depths. Legolas had always taken his promises to heart, and that had evidently not changed.

"I would like to hear of your time here," Aragorn commented. "If you would be willing to share the tale."

"Of course," Legolas answered. He glanced to the side and saw Lauren shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. She was well on her way to a full recovery, true, but standing for any length of time was still uncomfortable for her. "This is a long story, however, so we may as well make ourselves comfortable." He gestured toward the blanket that they had been sitting on previously and as a matter of habit, helped Lauren to be seated before taking his own seat near her. Legolas sighed as Aragorn seated himself. Where to begin his story? He was not exaggerating when he said it was a long story. Should he start with tales of his life in Valinor, or start with his journey here? Deciding to start with his time in Lauren's world, he picked a place and began his story.

"When I approached the Valar in Valinor and told them of my promise to you and my desire to travel to this time and place, they agreed to allow it, after much debate and with a few conditions. One of those conditions was that I not attempt to bring anyone back with me, and the other was that I return when my task was complete. They did not think it would be appropriate for me to attempt to stay for the remainder of Lauren's life as I did with you." As Aragorn's gaze sharpened, Legolas nodded. "I vowed to remain in Middle-earth as long as you lived mellon-nin. I held to that vow." He would speak no more of Aragorn's death or what he did after Aragorn's time on Middle-earth had ended, and he knew Aragorn would ask no more for fear of stirring up an old pain. "The Valar informed me when the time was right, and sent me back. I can say nothing of their methods, as I have also been sworn to keep their knowledge and methods secret from all those residing on Earth. Unfortunately, that includes Lauren, and she has not let me hear the end of it." He shot a wry grin toward the woman sitting nearby, waiting for her comments.

"Oh, I understand the need for secrecy," Lauren put in, right on cue. "But I don't think it's fair. I told you two all kinds of things about my world, after making sure that you would not repeat it or use it. I just thought that you might be able to return the favor, after swearing me to secrecy. It just doesn't seem fair that you can't tell me anything about the knowledge you have."

Legolas decided to ignore her pouting and protestations and continue with his story, going on as if he had not been interrupted. "The Valar also sought to prepare me for the world I would be entering so as not to be overwhelmed by the differences in our societies, and also to enable me to be a help to Lauren and not a burden. They trained me on the language I would be speaking and the many confusing customs I would be encountering. By the time I traveled here, I was well able to blend in."

"Is that why your manner of speaking has changed so?" Aragorn asked curiously, shifting to lean back against a tree.

"Well, the Valar were not correct on everything. The language they taught me was more than enough to get by, but there are many nuances, phrases and slang words that I have picked up in my time here. If my speech patterns seem to have changed unduly, blame Lauren and her friends." Legolas gave Lauren a sly grin that let Aragorn know he was teasing her.

"Hey!" Lauren protested, rising to the bait. "It's not like you won't go back to speaking elvish just as perfectly as you ever did when you return to Valinor. You speak English well enough to blend in with anyone you meet. Call it part of that 'protective camouflage'." She waved her hand expressively as she made her point. "But don't try to say that I've ruined your perfect diction or anything like that. I don't think a year or two in my world would be enough to overwrite thousands of years in Valinor and Middle-earth before that, so don't even try it."

Holding up a hand in a gesture of peace, Legolas nodded toward her to acknowledge that he was only teasing before continuing his tale. "I found Lauren in the hospital easily enough, though she seemed quite shocked when I entered her room." He smiled at Lauren as he remembered her staring at him with her mouth open in shock.

"Shocked doesn't exactly do it justice," Lauren inserted with a reminiscent smile. "If I hadn't been flat on my back in bed already, I would have ended up that way. I probably would have passed out when Legolas walked into my room."

// Lauren was not having a good day. She had only been awake for a week, and already the pain and the inactivity were getting to her. Though she hated her own behavior, she found herself sniping at her family and friends as they tried to help her or cajole her out of her bad mood. They finally left her alone as she started to drift off in a light doze. Her eyes were closed as she drifted in a half-awake state when she heard a familiar voice. A frown furrowed her brow as she tried to place the voice. When she recognized it as Legolas', she was convinced she was dreaming, and forced her eyes open. Glancing toward the door, she was stunned to see Legolas standing there…or at least someone who looked remarkably like Legolas, only human. This was surely a dream, or a hallucination. Was she having a reaction to some of her medication? Legolas couldn't possibly be here, and it was highly unlikely that there was a human around here who looked so much like Legolas. Lauren's eyebrows rose in surprise as her mother approached the man who now stood in the doorway.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"I was looking for Lauren Ellis," the Legolas look-alike said to her mother. "I heard she was in the hospital and came to visit."

"She's sleeping right now," her mother said, "but I'm sure she would appreciate a visit when she wakes up. Have we met before?"

"No, we have not," he answered. "I am a friend." Before he could say any more, a voice sounded from inside the room.

"I'm not asleep, Mom." Legolas and her mother both turned to look at Lauren. She was staring at Legolas with a look of utter shock on her face. She turned her eyes toward her mother. "He's a friend I haven't seen in a long time. I'd like to talk to him, if you wouldn't mind giving us some privacy?"

Lauren's mother gave her a look filled with curiosity, but apparently decided that she would not get any answers at the moment and nodded. "I'll be in the cafeteria. Just call the nurses if you need anything."

"I will," Lauren said. She knew her mother didn't know what to think about this situation, but she would have to come up with something to tell her later. Lauren kept her eyes fixed on Legolas as her mother gathered her purse and left the room. Once they were alone, she put voice to the questions swirling in her mind. "Are you who I think you are?"

Legolas gave her a serene smile. "Yes, Lauren, I am who you think."

"But how? You look so…" Lauren didn't seem to be capable of finishing the sentence.

"Human?" Legolas asked, smiling at her confusion. He crossed over to take the chair near her bedside. Her eyes followed him as he moved, though Legolas noticed that she was careful to move nothing but her head. He studied her appearance. She looked much the same as his memory of her in this place. Her legs were still held still by the metal contraption, and her arms were still covered in a series of healing scratches. The bandage from her head was gone, and Legolas could see a gash near her hairline with several stitches holding the edges together. Many of the life-sustaining machines were gone, and despite her visible injuries, she was looking much better. The pale stillness of her face was gone, replaced by a much healthier tone and much livelier expressions. Shock and confusion were the overriding expressions at the moment, however.

"Yeah," she said, still trying to reason through Legolas' appearance in her hospital room. "How are you even here? I thought you were in Valinor."

"And so I was," Legolas replied. "I swore to Aragorn that I would travel here to make sure that you were well. He was greatly concerned for you when you vanished."

Lauren closed her eyes and gave her head a small shake. "You would have had to make that promise to him thousands of years ago." She opened her eyes and looked back at him.

"Yes, I did," Legolas replied. "But it was a promise that I intended to keep. I also wished to know that you were well, and recovering from your injuries. The Valar allowed me to travel here for a short time to aid you in that. I am here to help you in any way I can, Lauren."

"Wow," Lauren said softly. "You left a paradise to help me?" Legolas merely inclined his head, and Lauren noticed once again that his long hair was held back in a ponytail, revealing the rounded ears of a human. "But how do you look so human?"

"Illusion," Legolas answered. "It would not be safe to appear as myself, so this was the solution we decided upon."

With stiffness evident in her movements, Lauren reached out her right hand and gently traced her fingers over the tip of his ear. Her eyes widened as she felt a pointed ear under her fingers that her eyes did not see. Legolas smiled at the expression on her face and reached up to take her hand in his. "Do you believe now that I am truly here?"

Lauren nodded slightly, her eyes still wide at the thought that the elf she had met in her dreams was now sitting before her in the flesh. She had never expected to actually meet him. A glance out the door reminded her that they had several people who would be expecting an introduction to Legolas, and she could not tell them the truth. "Thank you, Legolas. I appreciate this more than you can know. I would love to tell everyone I know who you really are, but we both know I can't do that. We need to come up with a story to explain who you are to my parents and friends."

Legolas nodded and leaned in closer so they could come up with a cover story for him.//

Aragorn's face was crinkled in a smile as Lauren and Legolas told him of their meeting in the hospital room. He could see Lauren's expression of shock so clearly in his mind's eye. "So what did you decide to tell your parents?" he asked Lauren.

"We decided that he would be Lucas Green, a good friend of mine from college. He was on a hiatus from his job and decided to come out to help me in my recovery. Mom wondered why I had never mentioned him before, and I told her something along the lines that I didn't tell her everything about my life. Legolas had not planned for a place to stay, so he slept on the couch at my house with my family for awhile. I think it helped assuage their fears about him when he seemed to know my pets. He knew their names, and while they had never seen him before, they just loved him at first sight because he's an elf." She shrugged and continued. "My brother had to return to Iraq shortly after Legolas' arrival, and Gail and Dad had to return to their jobs not long after that. Before they all left, they rearranged the house so that my bedroom was on the lower level so I would not have to face any stairs when I returned home. Anyway, while they were all in the house, Legolas must have charmed them all into trusting him, because they were all comfortable with the idea of leaving me in his care when they returned to their lives. Mom stuck around for a long time after the others left, but I think she missed my dad a lot. Once she was finally convinced that Legolas was capable of taking care of me and that he was trustworthy enough, she returned home to be with my father."

She hesitated a moment at this point, not sure she wanted to tell Aragorn about all the months of pain, disappointments, surgeries, and excruciating physical therapy sessions that had followed Legolas' arrival. But she couldn't just brush off his contributions during those times either. "The first few months weren't pretty. I have to say that Legolas saw me at my absolute worst. But he never faltered in his devotion to getting me through this. He consoled me when I needed comfort, pushed me when I needed encouragement, and kicked me out of my self-pity when I faltered. I honestly don't think I would have made it without him."

Legolas shook his head. "No, I merely helped you to find and channel the strength you hold inside. You are the one responsible for your own recovery." His eyes flashed as he returned the impish grin she had given them earlier. "And I was hardly the only person who stood beside you in your recovery. Are you forgetting Mark?"

Lauren flushed slightly as she looked back at the ring on her finger. "No, I'd never forget Mark. But I never would have given him the chance to help me nor opened my heart to him without your encouragement."

This was something that Aragorn really wanted to know the answer to. "Who is this Mark?" His question came out sounding rather more plaintive than he would have liked.

Taking pity on him, Lauren finally described a little more about the man she was to marry. "Well, I've actually known Mark for a long time. I was ten when I met him. He was my brother's best friend, though he wasn't too fond of me at the time. Most thirteen-year-old boys wouldn't be happy about a ten-year-old girl trying to tag along and do everything that they did. I have to admit that I probably made a bit of a pest of myself." Lauren's wry grin brought an answering smile to both Legolas' and Aragorn's faces. They could all too easily picture a ten-year-old Lauren following along and insisting on doing everything her brother did.

"That, I can believe," Aragorn said, grinning.

"Hey! I wasn't that bad," Lauren protested before continuing. "Anyway, we stayed at that location for a few years, and I was fourteen years old when we moved. Jeff and Mark stayed best friends the whole time, and I had a bit of a crush on him by that time. But I had already fallen into a pattern of trying to annoy him at every opportunity and didn't know how to change it, so I remained a pest in his eyes. He and Jeff actually kept in sporadic contact, so when he moved out here about six months before my accident, Jeff told me about it. I invited him to dinner to get caught up on old times. We got along pretty well and he joined my little group of friends, but though I could tell he was interested in becoming more, I never gave him any sign that it would be welcome. So he kept it at the level of friends and never pushed for more. He knew enough to know that I had had a bad romantic experience, though I never gave him any details."

Aragorn frowned as he remembered what she had told them. Knowing how few people had heard of her experience, he felt honored that she trusted them enough to tell Legolas and him. He reached over and placed a hand comfortingly on her shoulder as she continued her tale.

She sighed as she remembered the awful night that she was hurt. "The night of my accident, I had been traveling home after meeting him for dinner. When he first came to visit me in the hospital, I knew that he was feeling guilty that he didn't drive me home, or that I was out on the roads at all that night. I tried to convince him that it wasn't his fault and there was nothing he could have done differently, but I'm not sure he believed me." A soft smile crossed her face as she thought about him. "And since I woke up, he has come by almost every day to visit. He's been there with me through it all, not letting me push him away. I think he probably got some advice from a certain elf about how to deal with my moods, though," she added with a sidelong glance at Legolas. "Even though he didn't seem to like Legolas at first."

"Why is that?" Aragorn asked with a curious glance at Legolas.

Lauren gave a faint grin. "I think Mark was a bit jealous, honestly. Legolas came out of nowhere, nobody had ever met him, and yet it was clear that I trusted him completely. It probably didn't help that Legolas was pretty overprotective of me as well, though it was more of the parental or big brother style of overprotection. I relied really heavily on Legolas for quite some time. Mark finally relaxed though, and then he and Legolas began to gang up on me to do everything the doctors and therapists said. I didn't stand a chance against the both of them." She gave Legolas a grin to let him know that she didn't mean anything bad with her comments.

"Once he relaxed enough around me to allow discussion, he made quite a good ally," Legolas said lightly. "He is a good man."

Lauren smiled at Legolas, then went on. "Anyway, as I went through this ordeal and Mark remained by my side, I began to see that he would walk through fire to keep me safe if it were necessary. He would die before doing anything to hurt me. It finally sank in that he loved me, and that allowed me to open myself up to the possibility of love. Once I opened the door just that little crack, I fell head over heels in love. He is such a great guy, and he has the most intense blue eyes I've ever seen. I could drown in those eyes." Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality when she was speaking, but she shook her head as if to shake herself out of a trance. "It was about a month ago when he asked me to marry him. He's the one I told you about, the one who knows about hang-gliding. He took me out for my first real flight after the accident, and it was everything I had thought it would be. Flying was wonderful, and once we landed, he pulled out a ring, dropped down to one knee and asked me to marry him. My answer was a resounding yes. That was the most perfect day I've ever had. I wish you could meet him, but I've never been able to pull any other humans into my dreams but you."

That brought up a question for Aragorn. "And I would like to meet this man who has so stolen your heart. I am truly happy for you, Lauren." He looked over at Legolas, then back to Lauren. "But how did you summon Legolas to your dreams or intrude upon his?" The last part of his question came back to him as he remembered what Legolas had said as he arrived in Lauren's dream.

"I'm not entirely sure," Lauren admitted. "I think our contact somehow put us on the same wavelength or something." She paused to allow the comment that was sure to come from Legolas. He didn't disappoint her.

"Now there's a frightening thought." Legolas' voice was dry as he gave her a sidelong look.

Lauren just grinned and winked at him before continuing. "Anyway, somehow, my subconscious mind kept intruding on his subconscious mind. Legolas helped me figure out how to control my dreams to at least avoid bothering him."

"Bothering him?" Aragorn detected something in her voice, and the mischievous glint in her eye confirmed that there was more to this story.

"Well, he wasn't exactly happy the first time I found myself in his dreams," Lauren said, sliding a quick glance in Legolas' direction to see him frowning at her.

"Why was he so displeased?" Aragorn asked, knowing from Legolas' expression that this must be a good story.

"He happened to be dreaming of his wife at the time," Lauren said.

Legolas ignored Aragorn as his jaw dropped at hearing that Legolas was married. Legolas' attention was focused on Lauren. "I was remembering a special moment between my wife and I, Lauren, and I did not appreciate your intrusion."

Lauren remembered the clear moonlit night she had seen in Legolas' dreams. He and his wife had been strolling through the gardens before stopping near a low stone wall where Legolas leaned in to kiss the blonde elf maiden. Legolas later told her that what she had witnessed had been their first kiss. Lauren could understand why he wanted to keep that moment between he and his wife. "I said I was sorry for that, Legolas. I didn't intrude on purpose, you know that. If I had had any idea of how to leave, I would have done it quietly and you would never have known I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't have a clue how to do that. Do you want me to apologize again?"

Legolas shook his head. "No, I know it was not your intention to intrude."

"Good," Lauren said. "I thought it was very sweet. You two look good together. And you should relax about my witnessing it. While that was a very special moment between you, it was only a kiss."

Before they could continue their conversation, Aragorn asked the question foremost on his mind. "Wife?" he asked in amazement. "I believe you have been keeping things from me. Tell me more of this wife. Do you also have children?"

"And grandchildren and great-grandchildren," Lauren put in, having heard many of Legolas' tales of his family.

Aragorn turned to Legolas and was about to demand more information when Legolas held up a hand to stop the flow of words. "I met Arúviel in Valinor. Though there is less of a need for healers in Valinor, injuries are still possible, so Elrond still trains healers there. She was one of his students. I remained very near Elrond and his family upon my arrival in Valinor, and met her in the gardens one day. She was lovely, kneeling in the path, tending to a flower bed. I apologized for disturbing her peace, and she told me that she did not mind as she had not spoken with a single person the whole day. We wandered the gardens for a time, then. We became friends, and several years later, I asked her to join me in marriage. She agreed, and we were wed beneath the open skies in the garden where we had first met."

Legolas' gaze became rather far away as he became lost in his memories and Lauren sat up straighter and curled her legs up beneath her as she listened anew to Legolas' story.

"Our first son was named Estel, but she would not allow me to name any of our other children after our other friends from Middle-earth." Legolas looked up to see that Aragorn seemed quite touched at the thought that Legolas had named a child after him. Legolas gave him a grin. "She insists that Estel is a proper Elvish name, but Faramir or Gimli is not. You would like her, Estel. I do wish you could meet her…maybe someday you shall."

"What do you mean?" Aragorn asked. He was nearly speechless at the thought that Legolas' first son was named after him, but that last comment begged for an explanation.

"Let me just say that I have come to share Lauren's certainty that we will all be reunited some day," Legolas said mysteriously. He decided to continue his tale to distract Aragorn. "We have another son, Nimorn and two daughters, Rosuial and Lalaith."

Aragorn smiled at the thought of Legolas as a father of four. He would have loved to see him with them as small elflings. "Lauren said you have grandchildren?"

"Yes," Legolas answered. His smile grew mischievous. "Lalaith married Elrohir, and they have two children."

"Your daughter married my brother?" Aragorn asked in amazement. 

Lauren started giggling. "I nearly laughed myself silly when Legolas told me that he was Elrohir's father-in-law. I mean, I know that it doesn't work the same way among an immortal race, but the very thought was just hilarious."

Aragorn was still staring at Legolas in bewilderment. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around the thought that his best friend's daughter had married one of his older brothers. "What about Elladan?" Aragorn asked carefully.

"He married a great artisan named Imlada. They have twin daughters and a son." Legolas grinned at Aragorn. "No Aragorn, he did not marry my other daughter." Legolas knew what Aragorn had been thinking when he asked the question.

It was a rather sheepish grin that Aragorn returned. He had been wondering that very thing, actually. "What else can you tell me of my family? Are they happy?"

"Very much so," Legolas said. "Life continues much as it ever has. Your brothers still manage to worry your father with their recklessness, and he has continued to improve his skills so he can patch up their injuries."

"How do they get injured?" Aragorn asked in confusion. "There are no orcs to battle in Valinor. Are there other enemies?"

"No, of course not," Legolas said. "The only times weapons are needed are for hunts and contests of skill. I was referring to their other activities."

"And what activities would those be?" Aragorn asked warily. He was not quite sure he wanted to know the answer to that.

"They've pioneered the elven experiments with flight," Lauren put in with a grin. "Apparently, my stories, combined with Legolas' stories impressed them enough that they decided they wanted to know how to go hang-gliding."

Aragorn turned his head to face her with a slight frown on his face. "I thought Legolas was not allowed to tell you anything about his life in Valinor."

"He's not allowed to tell me about all their advancements," Lauren clarified. "They don't want any humans to have knowledge of anything we have not achieved for ourselves. Legolas is perfectly free to tell me about his life, his family, and any advancements they made that we also have. There were many days that I needed a distraction from the pain, and Legolas told me many stories about his life. So I've heard all about the twin's first attempts at flight. They didn't do so well at the beginning, actually. But then, the first human attempts to fly were pretty disastrous as well." She giggled to herself. "Instead of the Wright brothers, they had the Peredhel brothers."

From Lauren's comment, he assumed the Wright brothers were the ones who had pioneered human flight. He looked back to Legolas. "And did they finally succeed?" he asked, picturing his brothers crashing one device after another. He sorely hoped they had not attempted their first flights from too high of a location. Given this information, he could see how his father might still have cause to worry over his brothers.

"Yes," Legolas responded with a smile. "After many trials and studying the failures, they were able to re-create a hang-glider that supports the weight of an elf and allows one to soar among the clouds." He had a reminiscent smile on his face that told Aragorn he had taken advantage of the twin's success and had probably flown many times over the centuries.

"And did you aid them in their endeavors?" Aragorn questioned.

"No, I had my own studies," Legolas responded lightly. "After seeing the night sky as Lauren sees it, I took an interest in astronomy. It took a great deal of study, talking with the wisest of the elves, and inspiring debate and discussion among many of the younger elves, but we were able to create a society of elves who undertook to study the skies, the stars and everything beyond them. It took a great deal of time, research, and many, many observations with several telescopes, each one more advanced than the last, before we were able to reach even the level of humans of this time. But we had the advantage of time, and the ability to continue our studies beyond the lifetime of a human, so we have made great strides in this field."

"No kidding," Lauren muttered. She turned to face Aragorn with an unhappy look on her face. "He let it slip once that he knows what dark matter really is. And he won't tell me!" The last comment was nearly a wail. But after finding out that Legolas knew the answer to one of the greatest mysteries in astronomy was enough to drive her insane with curiosity. She turned to Legolas to give it one more shot. "Come on Legolas, I have to know. I won't tell anyone else, I swear I won't, you have my word. Just please tell me that one thing before you leave. I won't ask for anything else."

Legolas stared at her for a long moment before giving a sigh. "Very well. I will tell you, if only to get you to stop asking me." He took a deep breath and then looked her in the eyes. "The matter which makes up the bulk of the universe and yet cannot be seen is in actuality…invisible dragons."

Lauren's eyes had been growing wider as she thought she was about to learn the answer to the mystery of dark matter. At his last two words, they narrowed to slits. "Brat."

Legolas burst out laughing. "I am sorry, I couldn't resist. You should have seen the look on your face."

Lauren grabbed the pillow that she had been resting on and swung it into his face. "That was just mean."

Aragorn laughed at their antics as Legolas grabbed the pillow to keep her from hitting him again. Apparently, Lauren still enjoyed a good pillow fight. Lauren rose to her knees in an attempt to gain more leverage, and winced slightly as she swung once more at Legolas' head.

"What's wrong?" Legolas had caught the faint wince, and stopped the pillow as it swung toward his face, giving Lauren an intent stare. He knew she could be just as stubborn as Aragorn at admitting when she was in pain. And considering how long she had lived with pain as a daily companion, she had lost the ability to tell when she was doing too much.

"Nothing," Lauren said innocently.

"Why do I not believe that?" Legolas asked. Lauren knew by the tone of his voice that it was a rhetorical question, so she didn't answer. "Are your legs bothering you?" Legolas asked with a raised eyebrow that reminded Aragorn strongly of Elrond. Lauren just shrugged and looked away from Legolas' intent gaze. "Uh huh," Legolas said as his guess was confirmed. "I did say that last night might not have been such a good idea, did I not?"

At that, Lauren looked up and met his gaze firmly. "But it was worth it. I knew what I might be in for, and I don't need you saying 'I told you so'."

"What did you do?" Aragorn interrupted the minor altercation between them.

"I went dancing with a bunch of friends," Lauren said, turning her attention to Aragorn. "It was the first time since the accident, and I may have overdone it a little bit. The muscles in my legs were cramping up quite a bit before the end of the evening. Oh, but it was so much fun that it was worth every little bit of pain. I didn't really do any damage or set back my recovery, I just pushed certain muscles in more of a workout than they were happy with."

"Not to say 'I told you so', but I did tell you halfway through the evening that it might be a good idea to stop. You are not nearly so healed as you seem to think." Legolas had Lauren sit back before reaching over and gently drawing one of Lauren's legs into his lap as he began massaging away the aches and muscle cramps.

Lauren winced as he hit a particularly tender spot on her calf. "You just wanted to leave early because you didn't like the music. I told you that you didn't have to come and could leave any time you wanted."

Aragorn remembered the brief glimpse he had once gotten of one of Lauren's dance clubs. He had thought he had appeared in the midst of a battle. Staring askance at Legolas, he asked, "You went willingly into one of those clubs?"

"I had earplugs in to muffle the music," Legolas shrugged. "Someone had to keep an eye on Lauren and make sure she did not overdo it."

"And you didn't trust me or Mark to know my limits?" Lauren asked incredulously.

"Obviously not," Legolas said as his fingers dug into a particularly tight muscle.

Lauren winced again. "Point made. But I had so much fun that a little pain now is a small price to pay. I still say you would have had more fun if you let me or one of the others pull you out on the dance floor."

"Not on your life!" Legolas burst out. "That was not dancing. I have no idea what to call it, but it wasn't dancing." In truth, he had had fun watching the others have fun, but there was no way he would allow himself to be pulled out onto the floor. What they called dancing he considered very immodest, and he would never be able to bring himself to emulate them. It had been a joy to see Lauren with a smile on her face the whole evening, though. That glorious sight had been very rare those first few months.

Aragorn chuckled at the thought of Legolas in the midst of that sea of bodies he had briefly glimpsed. It would have been an amusing sight, but it sounded like Legolas had at least had the sense not to venture into that mob. He couldn't help but notice that when Legolas was arguing with Lauren, his speech slipped into a pattern that matched Lauren's far more closely than what he was used to hearing from Legolas.

Legolas placed Lauren's leg back on the blanket and pulled the other one into his lap to begin the soothing massage. Aragorn watched what seemed to be a ritual between them, and he noticed that Legolas seemed very skilled at therapeutic massage. It was something Aragorn had learned from Elrond long ago in his training as a healer to help in the healing of injuries to muscles or to help strengthen weak muscles. He did not know Legolas had taken any healer training, though.

Putting the pillow behind her head, Lauren lay back on the blanket and let Legolas' hands work the pain out of her sore muscles. Giving a soft sigh, she closed her eyes to a mere slit. "You really have to teach that to Mark, Legolas. Since you learned it from Elrond, it surely doesn't fall under the heading of knowledge you're not allowed to share."

"You have studied with my father, Legolas?" Aragorn asked, curiously. He thought Legolas had spent all of his time with his studies of astronomy. But then, Legolas had had thousands of years. There was surely time to do both.

"Yes, I have studied with Elrond. I will never be the healer that he or Arúviel, my wife is, but I have learned a few things over the years." Legolas' smile softened as he mentioned his wife. "But knowing that I would be here to help Lauren, I did train with Elrond in the art of healing the types of injuries we knew Lauren had."

Aragorn noticed the smile on his face as he mentioned his wife. "I would like to hear tales of your life and your family, my friend. It does my heart good to know that you and my family are well and happy."

Legolas smiled at him before launching into a story of when his first child was very young and his first attempts to teach him to eat solid foods. He regaled them for the rest of the evening with tales of life in Valinor, mixed with the occasional tale of his experiences in Lauren's world. When Aragorn began to show signs of fading away as he awoke, Legolas' eyes widened in panic.

"No, not yet. Aragorn, I am not ready to say goodbye again so soon."

Aragorn struggled to hold onto his sleep. He had never wanted to cause Legolas pain, and the panic in his eyes was shredding Aragorn's heart. "I do not know how much longer I may remain here, Legolas. My body is trying to awake, and I do not seem to have much to say in the matter."

Legolas lowered his head and nodded slowly before raising his eyes to meet Aragorn's. The look in his eyes was once more as it had been when Legolas revealed himself to Aragorn. The panic had faded, to be replaced by that look of un-definable wisdom and a depth that seemed to go on forever. "Forgive me, mellon-nin. I had no right to ask you to stay beyond your ability. It is time for you to return to your life. I do ask that you not tell Legolas that you have met with us tonight. You did not tell me about this, so you cannot tell the Legolas of your time." A soft smile quirked his mouth at the confused look on Aragorn's face. "I am truly grateful that we were given this chance to speak. I have missed you, my friend. But I know that we will meet again some day." He leaned over and wrapped his arms around Aragorn again.

Aragorn returned the embrace with tears in his eyes at the thought that once he faded away, Legolas would have to face losing him all over again.

"Namárië, gwador-nin", Legolas whispered in his ear. (Farewell, my brother.)

"Namárië, gwador-nin," Aragorn returned in a choked voice. They pulled away and Aragorn found his gaze caught by those uncanny blue eyes. He finally forced his gaze away to face Lauren. He had a feeling this would be the last time he saw her, and he would not leave without saying goodbye. "My heart is lightened with the knowledge that you are doing so well, Lauren. I thank the Valar for this chance to see you both again. I am sure you plan to do this anyway, but I will offer this last piece of advice. Live your life to the fullest and treasure those in your life. Namárië and farewell."

Lauren nodded her head toward him regally. "Namárië, hîr Elessar." (Farewell, Lord Elessar)

Aragorn gave her a startled look. "You understand Sindarin?"

Lauren shrugged. "I've picked up a few words here and there. How could I not with an elf living in my house?" Her voice lowered and she gave him a wink. "When he gets mad at me, he starts speaking Sindarin. I had him teach me some just so I'd know if he was cussing me out or something." Her smile grew rather wry. "If you thought it was hard to win an argument with him before, you should try it after he's had a few millennia of being a parent."

Aragorn grinned at her words and expression. "Then I will leave him to you. Fare thee well, both of you." With that, he could no longer hold his grip on the dream world and faded away.

Lauren turned to face Legolas and saw a hint of tears glimmering in his eyes. "Are you all right?" she asked him in concern.

Legolas smiled at her before draping an arm companionably over her shoulders. "Yes, Lauren. I am well. I will miss him, but this parting is not forever. I still look forward to the day we will be reunited." He looked at her, then back to the pond. "And if it is not yet time for us to awaken, would you care for a swim?" His eyes glinted as he remembered his long-time taunts to Aragorn. "I do believe you could use a bath."

Her eyes glittered with a mix of humor and false outrage. "I had a shower just before I went to bed, thank you very much! Prissy elf." The last comment was delivered just as Aragorn had said it many times in the past.

"Stubborn human," Legolas retorted, feeling light-hearted as he stood to his feet and pulled Lauren to hers before they raced for the water.

They swam and played in the water until they began to fade to wakefulness. Lauren smiled as she faded. It was time to face a new day.

The End


End file.
